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FROM-THE- LIBRARYOF
TR1NITYCOLLEGETORONTO

Boaned by ihe
Library of the University of Toronto

being duplicated there by the Bequest

of the late Mr. Goldwin Smith.

A.D. 1914.

DR. SCHAFFS WORKS.

HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Fifth edition, revised
and enlarged, 1890.

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Vol. IV. Mediaeval Christianity, A.D. 590-1073. 8vo, $4.00.
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HISTORY

THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH

PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., LL.D.

PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SBMINAHY

NEW YORK

Cjjriitisnus sum : Cbristiani tribil a nu alumtm puto

VOLUME VII

MODERN CHRISTIANITY

THE SWISS REFORMATION

FOURTH EDITION, REVISED

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1903

HISTORY

THE REFORMATION

PHILIP SCHAFF

VOLUME II

THE SWISS REFORMATION

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

TO
HIS OLDEST AND DEAREST SWISS FRIENDS

. jjretieric (^otiet, 39. J9.

HONORARY PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AT NEUCHATEL
AND

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH

THIS VOLUME

ON THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION
IN THEIR NATIVE LAND

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

BY THE

AUTHOR

PREFACE.

THIS volume concludes the history of the productive period of the Refor
mation, in which Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin were the chief actors. It
follows the Protestant movement in German, Italian, and French Switzerland,
to the close of the sixteenth century.

During the last year, the sixth centenary of the oldest surviving Republic
was celebrated with great patriotic enthusiasm. On the first day of August,
in the year 1291, the freemen of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden formed " in
the name of the Lord " a perpetual alliance for the mutual protection of their
persons, property, and liberty, against internal and external foes. On the
same day, in 1891, the great event was commemorated in every village of
Switzerland by the ringing of bells and the illumination of the mountains,
while on the following day — a Sunday — thanksgiving services were held in
every church, Catholic 'and Protestant. The chief festivities took place, from
July 31 to Aug. 2, in the towns of Schwyz and Brunnen, and were attended by
the Federal and Cantonal dignitaries, civil and military, and a vast assembly
of spectators. The most interesting feature was a dramatic representation of
the leading events in Swiss history — the sacred oaths of Schwyz, Brunnen,
and Griitli, the poetic legend of William Tell, the heroic battles for liberty and
independence against Austria, Burgundy, and France, the venerable figure of
Nicolas von der Flue appearing as a peacemaker in the Diet at Stans, and the
chief scenes of the Reformation, the Revolution, and the modern reconstruc
tion. The drama, enacted in the open field in view of mountains and mead
ows and the lake of Luzern, is said to have equalled in interest and skill of
execution the famous Passion Play of Oberammergau. Similar celebrations
took place, not only in every city and village of Switzerland, but also in the
Swiss colonies in foreign lands, notably in New York, on the 5th, 6th, and 7th
of September.1

1 The celebration has elicited some valuable contributions to the authentic history of
Switzerland, which may be added to the literature on p. 3. I mention Dr. W. OECHSLI :
Die Anfdnge der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft. Zurich, 1391. — Jos. To. VON AH:
Die Bundesbriefe der alien Eidgenossen von 1291 bis 1513. Einsiedeln, 1891. — PIERRE
VAUCHER : Les Commencements de la Confederation suisse. Lausanne, 1391. — Prof.
GEORG VON WYSS : Rede bei der Bundesfeier der Eidgenossischen polytechn. Schule, und
der Ilochschule Zurich, am 25 Jnli 1891. Zurich, 1891. — Denkschrift der historischen
u. antiquarischen Gesellschafi zu Easel. Zur Erinnerung an den Bund der Eidgenossen
vom 1. Aug. 1291. Basel, 1891. — The second volume of DIERAUER'S Geschichte der
Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschqft appeared at Q-otha, 1892, but goes only to the year 1516,
when the history of the Reformation began.

VI PREFACE.

Between Switzerland and the United States there has always been a natural
sympathy and friendship. Both aim to realize the idea of a government of
freedom without license, and of authority without despotism ; a government
of law and order without a standing army ; a government of the people, by
the people, and for the people, under the sole headship of Almighty God.

At the time of the Reformation, Switzerland numbered as many Cantons
(13) as our country originally numbered States, and the Swiss Diet was then
a loose confederation representing only the Cantons and not the people, just
as was our Continental Congress. But by the revision of the Constitution in
1848 and 1874, the Swiss Republic, following the example of our Constitu
tion, was consolidated from a loose, aristocratic Confederacy of independent
Cantons into a centralized federal State,1 with a popular as well as a can
tonal representation. In one respect the modern Swiss Constitution is even
more democratic than that of the United States; for, by the Initiative and
the Referendum, it gives to the people the right of proposing or rejecting
national legislation.

But there is a still stronger bond of union between the two countries than
that which rests on the affinity of political institutions. Zwingli and Calvin
directed and determined the westward movement of the Reformation to France,
Holland, England, and Scotland, and exerted, indirectly, a moulding influence
upon the leading Evangelical Churches of America. George Bancroft, the
American historian, who himself was not a Calvinist, derives the republican
institutions of the United States from Calvinism through the medium of Eng
lish Puritanism. A more recent writer, Douglas Campbell, of Scotch descent,
derives them from Holland, which was still more under the influence of the
Geneva Reformer than England. Calvinism breeds manly, independent, and
earnest characters who fear God and nothing else, and favors political and
religious freedom. The earliest and most influential settlers of the United
States — the Puritans of England, the Presbyterians of Scotland and Ireland,
the Huguenots of France, the Reformed from Holland and the Palatinate, —
were Calvinists, and brought with them the Bible and the Reformed Confes
sions of Faith. Calvinism was the ruling theology of New England during
the whole Colonial Period, and it still rules in great measure the theology
of the Presbyterian, Congregational, and Baptist Churches.

In the study of the sources I have derived much benefit from the libraries
of Switzerland, especially the Stadtbibliothek of Zurich, which contains the
invaluable Simler collection and every important work relating to the Refor
mation in Switzerland. I take great pleasure in expressing my obligation to
Dr. G. von Wyss, president, and Dr. Escher, librarian, for their courtesy
and kindness on repeated visits to that library.

The sources on the Reformation in French Switzerland are now made fully
accessible by the new critical edition of Calvin's works, by Ilerminjard's col
lection of the correspondence of the French-speaking Reformers (not yet
completed), and by the publications of the documentary history of Geneva
during the period of Calvin's labors, including the registers of the Council
and of the Consistory.

1 A Bundesstaat, as distinct from a Staatenbund,

PREFACE. Vll

I have freely quoted from Calvin's works and letters, which give us the
best insight into his mind and heart. I have consulted also his chief biogra
phers, — French, German, and English: his enthusiastic admirers, — Beza,
Henry, Stahelin, Bungener, and Merle D'Aubigne; his virulent detractors,
— Bolsec, Galiffe, and Audin ; and his impartial critics, — Dyer, and Kamp-
schulte. Dr. Henry's work (1844) was the first adequate biography of the
great Reformer, and is still unsurpassed as a rich collection of authentic
materials, although not well arranged and digested.1 Dr. Merle D'Aubigne's
"History of the Reformation " comes down only to 1542. Thomas H. Dyer,
LL.D., the author of the " History of Modern Europe," from the fall of
Constantinople to 1871, and other historical works, has written the first able
and readable " Life of Calvin " in the English language, which is drawn
chiefly from Calvin's correspondence, from Ruchat, Henry, and, in the Serve-
tus chapter, from Mosheim and Trechsel, and is, on the whole, accurate and
fair, but cold and unsympathetic. The admirable work of Professor Kamp-
schulte is based on a thorough mastery of the sources, but it is unfortunately
incomplete, and goes only as far as 1542. The materials for a second and
third volume were placed after his death (December, 1872) into the hands of
Professor Cornelius of Munich, who, however, has so far only written a few
sections. His admiration for Calvin's genius and pure character (see p. 205)
presents an interesting parallel to Dollinger's eloquent tribute to Luther
(quoted in vol. VI. 741), and is all the more valuable as he dissented from
Calvin's theology and church polity ; for he was an Old Catholic and intimate
friend of Reusch and Dollinger.2

The sole aim of the historian ought to be the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth.

I have dedicated this volume to my countrymen and oldest surviving
friends in Switzerland, Dr. GEORG VON WYSS of Zurich and Dr. FREDERIC
GODET of Neuchatel. The one represents German, the other French Switzer
land. Both are well known ; the one for his historical, the other for his
exegetical works. They have followed the preparation of this book with
sympathetic interest, and done me the favor of revising the proof-sheets.3

1 The first and second volumes of Dr. Henry's larger biography are sometimes quoted
from the English translation of Dr. Stebbing; but the third volume always from the
original, as Dr. Stebbing omits the appendices and nearly all the original documents.

2 Professor Reusch of Bonn kindly informed me by letter (Sept. 8, 1891) that Kamp-
schulte first studied for the priesthood and was an orthodox and pious Catholic, but opposed
the Vatican decree of papal infallibility in 1870, and may therefore be considered as hav
ing been virtually excommunicated. He administered to him the last sacrament (which the
ultramontane priest was prohibited from doing by the Archbishop of Cologne). The first
volume of Kampschulte's work was fully and favorably reviewed in Reusch's Literatur-
llatt for 1869, No. 662, by Dr. Hefele of Tubingen, shortly before he became bishop of
Rottcnburg. Hefele, as a member of the Vatican council, was one of the most learned oppo
nents of papal infallibility, but afterwards submitted for the sake of peace. A biographical
notice of Kampschulte by Cornelius is to be found in the fifteenth volume of the Allgemeine
Deutsche Biographie.

3 I take the liberty of quoting a few passages from recent letters of these Swiss scholars
which will interest the reader. Dr. von Wyss writes : " Ihr Vaterland in Amerika und die
englische Sprache geben dem Werke cln Geprdge, welches dasselbe ran deutschen dhnlichen

yiii PREFACE.

I feel much encouraged by the kind reception of my Church History at
home and abroad. The first three volumes have been freely translated into
Chinese by the Rev. D. Z. Sheffield (a missionary of the American Board),
and into Hindostani by the Rev. Robert Stewart (of the Presbyterian Mission
of Sialkot).

I have made considerable progress in the fifth volume, which will complete
the history of the Middle Ages. It was delayed till I could make another
visit to Rome and Florence, and study more fully the Renaissance, which
preceded the Reformation. Two or three more volumes will be necessary to
bring the history down to the present time, according to the original plan.
But how many works remain unfinished in this world ! Ars longa, vita brevis.

JUNE, 1892.

POSTSCRIPT.

The above Preface was ready for the printer, and the book nearly finished,
when, on the 15th of July last, I was suddenly interrupted by a stroke of
paralysis at Lake Mohonk (where I spent the summer) ; but, in the good
providence of God, my health has been nearly restored. My experience is
recorded in the 103d Psalm of thanksgiving and praise.

I regret that I could not elaborate chs. XVII. and XVIII., especially the
influence of Calvin upon the Reformed Churches of Europe and America
(§§ 162 and 163), as fully as I wished. My friend, the Rev. Samuel Macauley
Jackson, who happened to be with me when I was taken sick, aided me in

Schriften eindrilcklich unterscheidet — es liegt ein so unmittelbares Auffassen und Erfas-
sen der Hauptsache, auf die es ankommt, ein so bestimmtes Losgehen auf das Leben, das
Praktische, darin — dass mich dieser charakteristische Zug Ihrer gewaltigen Arbeit unge-
rnein anzieht. Wie verscliieden sind doch die Anlagen und die Bedilrfnisse der Volker >
Wer wollte deutsches, franzosisches, englisches, amerikanisches Blut und Wesen (ich
nenne sie nach der historischen Reihenfolge) zusammenschmelzen konnen ! Ueberall ein
eigenthiimlicher Zug ! Jeder werthvoll und lieb, wenn er nicht ilbertrieben wird ! Wer
soil die Einheit bilden? Dariiber sind wir, mein hochverehrter Freund (ich bin glucklich,
so sagen zu dilrfen), einig. Aber was ivird es einst sein, wenn ivir diese Einigung in ihrer
vollen Verwirklichung , iiber dieser Erde, erblicken werden ! " — " Ich lese die Probebogen
allezeit mit dem grossten Vergnugen. Die Klarheit, Bestimmtheit und Genauigkeit Ihrer
Darstellung (bis in's Einzelnste) und der Geist von dem sie getragen ist, gewdhren mir
die grdsste Befriedigung. . . . Was Zwingli in seiner Expositio Fidel an Kdnig Franz I.
ilber die Welt jenseits des Grabes sagt, ist mir von alien seinen Aeusseriingen stets das
Liebste, und in nicht s fiihle ich mich ihm mehr verwandt als gerade darin, — sowie in der
Liebe, die ihn zu Bnllinger zog." — Dr. Godot (Dec. 3, 1891): " Du scheinst zu furchten,
dass die Druckbogen mir eine Last seien. Im Gegentheil, sie sind mir fine Freude und
Belehrung gewesen. Ich fiabe nie etwas so Befriedigendes iiber den Gegenstand gelesen.
Calvin tritt hervor mit seinem ivahren Gesicht und in seiner hehren Gestalt. Ich danke
Dir herzlich fur diese Mittheilung." The same, in a more recent letter: ..." Qu'ilnotts
soit donne a tous deux avant de quitter cette vie de pouvoir terminer nos travaux com
mences, — toi, ton Histoire . . . moi, mon Introduction au Nouvean Testament. ... Le
premier volume, les epitres de Paul, sera, fespere, termine et imprime avec la fin de
Vannee (1892} si . . ." The venerable author is now in his eightieth year.

PREFACE. IX

the last chapter, on Beza, for which he was well prepared by previous studies.
I had at first intended to add a history of the French Reformation, but this
would make the volume too large and delay the publication. I have added,
however, in an appendix, a list of literature which I prepared some time ago
in the Library of the Society of the History of French Protestantism at Paris,
and brought down to date. Most of the books are in my possession.

I may congratulate myself that, notwithstanding this serious interruption,
I am enabled to publish the history of the Reformation of my native land
before the close of the fiftieth anniversary of my academic teaching, which
I began in December, 1842, in the University of Berlin, when my beloved
teacher, Neander, was in the prime of his usefulness. A year afterwards,
I received, at his and Tholuck's recommendation, a call to a theological pro
fessorship from the Synod of the German Reformed Church in the United
States, and I have never regretted accepting it. For it is a great privilege
to labor, however humbly, for the kingdom of Christ in America, which
celebrates in this month, with the whole civilized world, the fourth centen
nial of its discovery.

Thankful for the past, I look hopefully to the future.

PHILIP SCHAFF.

UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY,
NEW YORK, October 12, 1892.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The first edition (of 1500 copies) being exhausted, I have examined the
volume and corrected a number of typographical errors, mostly in the French
words of the last chapters. There was no occasion for other improvements.

P. S.

AUGUST 9, 1893.

CONTENTS OF VOL. VII.

HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION.
SECOND BOOK.

THE SWISS REFORMATION.
CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

§ 1. SWITZERLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. (Map of Switzerland

in the sixteenth century) 1

§ 2. THE Swiss REFORMATION 5

§ 3. THE GENIUS OF THE Swiss REFORMATION COMPARED WITH THE

GERMAN 8

§ 4. LITERATURE ON THE Swiss REFORMATION 12

CHAPTER II.

ZWINGLI'S TRAINING. A.D. 1484-1519.

§ 5. THE ZWINGLI LITERATURE. (Portrait of Zwingli) 16

§ 6. ZWINGLI'S BIRTH AND EDUCATION. (Cut of Wildhaus) 20

§ 7. ZWINGLI IN GLARUS. (Notes on his moral character) 23

§ 8. ZWINGLI IN EINSIEDELN 29

§ 9. ZWINGLI AND LUTHER 33

CHAPTER III.

THE REFORMATION IN ZURICH. 1519-1526.

§ 10. ZWINGLI CALLED TO ZURICH. (Cut of the Great Minster) 38

§ 11. ZWINGLI'S PUBLIC LABORS AND PRIVATE STUDIES 39

§ 12. ZWINGLI AND THE SALE OF INDULGENCES 42

§ 13. ZWINGLI DURING THE PESTILENCE 43

§14. THE OPEN BREACH. CONTROVERSY ABOFT FASTS, 1522 46

§ 15. PETITION FOR THE ABOLITION OF CLERICAL CELIBACY. ZWINGLI'S

MARRIAGE 48

Xll CONTENTS.

PAGE

§ 16. ZWINGLI AND LAMBERT OF AVIGNON 50

§ 17. ZWINGLI'S SIXTY-SEVEN ARTICLES, 1523 51

§ 18. THE PUBLIC DISPUTATIONS, 1523 53

§ 19. THE ABOLITION OF THE ROMAN WORSHIP, 1524 58

§20. THE REFORMED CELEBRATION OF THE LORD'S SUPPER, 1525 60

§ 21. OTHER CHANGES. A THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL. A SYSTEM OF THE
OLOGY 62

§ 22. THE Swiss BIBLE. LEO JUD.E. (Cuts of Leo Judae, and Zurich

at the time of Zwingli) 63

§ 23. CHURCH AND STATE 65

§ 24. ZWINGLI'S CONFLICT WITH RADICALISM 69

§ 25. THE BAPTISMAL CONTROVERSY 76

§ 26. PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS 81

§ 27. THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY 85

§ 28. THE WORKS OF ZWINGLI 87

§ 29. THE THEOLOGY OF ZWINGLI 89

CHAPTER IV.

SPREAD OF THE REFORMATION IN GERMAN SWITZERLAND AND THE

GRISONS.

§ 30. THE Swiss DIET AND THE CONFERENCE AT BADEN, 1526 97

§ 31. THE REFORMATION IN BERN. HALLER 102

§ 32. THE REFORMATION IN BASEL. (ECOLAMPADIUS 107

§ 33. THE REFORMATION IN GLARUS. TSCHUDI. GLAREANUS 116

§ 34. THE REFORMATION IN ST. GALL, TOGGENBURG, AND APPENZELL.

VADIANUS AND KESSLER 123

§ 35. THE REFORMATION IN SCHAFFHAUSEN. HOFMEISTER 129

§ 36. THE GRISONS (GRAUBUNDEN) 130

§ 37. THE REFORMATION IN THE GRISONS 135

§ 38. THE REFORMATION IN THE ITALIAN PARTS OF THE GRISONS. VER-

GERIO. (With Portrait) 144

§ 39. PROTESTANTISM IN CHIAVENNA AND THE VALTELLINA, AND ITS

SUPPRESSION. THE VALTELLINA MASSACRE. GEORGE JENATSCH. 155

§ 40. THE CONGREGATION OF LOCARNO 161

§ 41. ZwiNGLIANISM IN GERMANY 163

CHAPTER V.

THE CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS WAR BETWEEN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC AND
REFORMED CANTONS.

§ 42. THE FIRST WAR OF CAPPEL, 1529 165

§ 43. THE FIRST PEACE OF CAPPELL, JUNE, 1529 171

§ 44. BETWEEN THE WARS. POLITICAL PLANS OF ZWINGLI 174

§ 45. ZWINGLI'S LAST CONFESSION OF FAITH 176

§ 46. THE SECOND WAR OF CAPPEL, 1531 179

CONTENTS. Xlll

PAGE

§ 47. DEATH or ZWINGLI, OCT. 11, 1531 184

§ 48. REFLECTIONS ON THE DISASTER AT CAPPEL 187

§49. THE SECOND PEACE OF CAPPEL, NOVEMBER, 1531 192

§ 50. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC REACTION. (Cut of Einsiedeln) 195

§51. THE RELATIVE STRENGTH OF ROMANISM AND PROTESTANTISM... 198
S 52. ZWINGLI REDIVIVUS 199

CHAPTER VI.

THE PERIOD OF CONSOLIDATION.

§ 53. LITERATURE 203

§ 54. ANTISTES BULLINGER. (With Portrait) 204

§ 55. ANTISTES BREITINGER 214

§ 56. OSWALD MYCONIUS 215

§ 57. THE HELVETIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 219

THIRD BOOK.

THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND, OR
THE CALVINISTIC MOVEMENT.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PREPARATORY WORK. FROM 1526 TO 1536.

§ 58. LITERATURE ON CALVIN AND THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWIT
ZERLAND 223

§ 59. THE SITUATION OF FRENCH SWITZERLAND BEFORE THE REFOR
MATION 232

§ 60. WILLIAM FAREL (1489-1565). (With Portrait) 237

§61. FAREL IN GENEVA. THE FIRST ACT OF THE REFORMATION 244

§ 62. THE LAST LABORS OF FAREL 248

§63. PETER VIRET AND THE REFORMATION IN LAUSANNE 251

§ 64. ANTOINE FROMENT 253

» CHAPTER VIII.

JOHN CALVIN AND HIS WORK. FROM 1536 TO 1564.

§ 65. JOHN CALVIN COMPARED WITH THE OLDER REFORMERS. (With

Portrait) 255

§ 66. CALVIN'S PLACE IN HISTORY 259

§ 07. CALVIN'S LITERARY LABORS 267

§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MERITS OF CALVIN 270

XIV CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IX.

FROM FRANCE TO SWITZERLAND. 1509-1536.

PAGE

§ 69. CALVIN'S YOUTH AND TRAINING 296

§70. CALVIN AS A STUDENT IN THE FRENCH UNIVERSITIES 304

§71. CALVIN AS A HUMANIST. COMMENTARY ON SENECA, 1532 308

§ 72. CALVIN'S CONVERSION, 1532 309

§ 73. CALVIN'S CALL 313

§74. THE OPEN RUPTURE. AN ACADEMIC ORATION, 1533 317

§ 75. PERSECUTION OF THE PROTESTANTS IN PARIS, 1534 319

§ 76. CALVIN AS A WANDERING EVANGELIST, 1533-1536 322

§ 77. THE SLEEP OF THE SOUL, 1534 325

§ 78. CALVIN AT BASEL, 1535-1536 325

§79. CALVIN'S INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, 1536 327

§ 80. FROM BASEL TO FERRARA AND GENEVA. THE DUCHESS RENEE. 343

CHAPTER X.
CALVIN'S FIRST SOJOURN AND LABORS IN GENEVA. 1536-1538.

§81. CALVIN'S ARRIVAL AND SETTLEMENT AT GENEVA, 1536 347

§ 82. FIRST LABORS AND TRIALS 349

§83. THE REFORMERS INTRODUCE ORDER AND DISCIPLINE 352

§ 84. EXPULSION OF THE REFORMERS, 1538 357

CHAPTER XL

CALVIN IN GERMANY. FROM 1538 TO 1541.

§ 85. CALVIN IN STRASSBURG 363

§ 86. THE CHURCH OF THE STRANGERS IN STRASSBURG 367

§ 87. THE LITURGY OF CALVIN 370

§ 88. CALVIN AS THEOLOGICAL TEACHER AND AUTHOR 375

§89. CALVIN AT THE COLLOQUIES OF WORMS AND REGENSBURG 377

§ 90. CALVIN AND MELANCHTHON 385

§ 91. CALVIN AND SADOLET. THE VINDICATION OF THE REFORMATION. 398
§ 92. CALVIN'S MARRIAGE AND HOME LIFE 413

CHAPTER XH.
CALVIN'S SECOND SOJOURN AND LABORS AT GENEVA. 1541-1564.

§ 93. THE STATE OF GENEVA AFTER THE EXPULSION OF THE RE
FORMERS r 425

§ 94. CALVIN'S RECALL TO GENEVA 428

§ 95. CALVIN'S RETURN TO GENEVA, 1541 433

CONTENTS. XV

PAGE

§ 96. THE FIRST YEARS AFTER THE RETURN (1641-1545) 438

§ 97. SURVEY OF CALVIN'S ACTIVITY . 443

CHAPTER XIII.

CONSTITUTION AND DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH OF GENEVA.

§ 98. LITERATURE 448

§ 99. CALVIN'S IDEA OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 448

§ 100. THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE CHURCH 457

§ 101. THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT 461

§102. DISTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF CALVIN'S CHURCH POLITY 466

§ 103. CHURCH AND STATE 471

§ 104. THE ECCLESIASTICAL ORDINANCES 475

§ 105. THE VENERABLE COMPANY AND THE CONSISTORY 480

§ 106. CALVIN'S THEORY OF DISCIPLINE 484

§ 107. THE EXERCISE OF DISCIPLINE IN GENEVA 489

§ 108. CALVIN'S STRUGGLE WITH THE PATRIOTS AND LIBERTINES 494

§ 109. THE LEADERS OF THE LIBERTINES AND THEIR PUNISHMENT : —

GRUET, PERRIN, AMEAUX, VANDEL, BERTHELIER 501

§ 110. GENEVA REGENERATED. IMPARTIAL TESTIMONIES 515

CHAPTER XIV.

THE THEOLOGY OF CALVIN.

§ 111. CALVIN'S COMMENTARIES 524

§ 112. THE CALVINISTIC SYSTEM 538

§ 113. THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION 645

§ 114. CALVINISM EXAMINED 568

§ 115. CALVIN'S THEORY OF THE SACRAMENTS 582

§ 116. BAPTISM 584

§117. THE LORD'S SUPPER. THE CONSENSUS OF ZURICH 588

CHAPTER XV.

DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES.

§ 118. CALVIN AS A CONTROVERSIALIST 594

§ 119. CALVIN AND PIGHIUS 595

§ 120. THE ANTI- PAPAL WRITINGS. CRITICISM OF THE COUNCIL OF

TRENT, 1547 599

§ 121. AGAINST THE GERMAN INTERIM, 1549 602

§ 122. AGAINST THE WORSHIP OF RELICS, 1543 605

§ 123. THE ARTICLES OF THE SORBONNE WITH AN ANTIDOTE, 1544... 609

§ 124. CALVIN AND THE NICODEMITES, 1544 610

§ 125. CALVIN AND BOLSEC 614

§ 126. CALVIN AND CASTELLIO 621

XVI CONTENTS.

PAGE

§ 127. CALVIN AND LI NIT ARI AN ISM. THE ITALIAN REFUGEES 628

§ 128. CALVIN AND L^LIUS SOCINUS 633

§ 129. BERNARDINO OCHINO. (With Portrait) 637

§ 130. OSSLIUS SECUNDUS CURIO, 1503-1569 651

§ 131. THE ITALIAN ANTITRINITARIANS IN GENEVA. GRIBALDO, BIAN-

DRATA, ALCIATI, GENTILE 652

§132. THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSIES. CALVIN AND WESTPHAL... 658
§ 133. CALVIN AND THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. MELANCHTHON'S PO
SITION IN THE SECOND EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY 664

§ 134. CALVIN AND HESHUSIUS 671

§ 135. CALVIN AND THE ASTROLOGERS 676

CHAPTER XVI.

SERVETUS: HIS LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION.

§ 136. THE SERVETUS LITERATURE. (Portrait of Servetus) 681

§ 137. CALVIN AND SERVETUS 687

§ 138. CATHOLIC INTOLERANCE 693

§ 139. PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE. JUDGMENTS OF THE REFORMERS ON

SERVETUS 700

§ 140. THE EARLY LIFE OF SERVETUS 712

§ 141. THE BOOK AGAINST THE HOLY TRINITY 715

§ 142. SERVETUS AS A GEOGRAPHER 720

§ 143. SERVETUS AS A PHYSICIAN, SCIENTIST, AND ASTROLOGER 723

§ 144. SERVETUS AT VIENNE. His ANNOTATIONS ON THE BIBLE 725

§ 145. CORRESPONDENCE OF SERVETUS WITH CALVIN 727

§ 146. " THE RESTITUTION OF CHRISTIANITY "... 732

§ 147. THE THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF SERVETUS 736

§ 148. TRIAL OF SERVETUS AT VIENNE 757

§ 149. ARRIVAL AND ARREST OF SERVETUS IN GENEVA 763

§ 150. STATE OF POLITICAL PARTIES AT GENEVA IN 1553 766

§ 151. THE FIRST ACT OF THE TRIAL AT GENEVA 768

§ 152. THE SECOND ACT OF THE TRIAL AT GENEVA 772

§ 153. CONSULTATION OF THE Swiss CHURCHES. THE DEFIANT ATTI
TUDE OF SERVETUS 779

§ 154. CONDEMNATION OF SERVETUS 781

§ 155. EXECUTION OF SERVETUS, OCT. 27, 1553 783

§ 156. THE CHARACTER OF SERVETUS 786

§ 157. CALVIN'S DEFENCE OF THE DEATH PENALTY OF HERETICS 789

§ 158. A PLEA FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. CASTELLIO AND BEZA 794

CHAPTER XVII.

CALVIN ABROAD.

§ 159. CALVIN'S CATHOLICITY OF SPIRIT 799

§ 160. GENEVA THE ASYLUM OF PROTESTANTS FROM ALL COUNTRIES.. 802

CONTENTS.

PAGE

§ 161. THE ACADEMY OF GENEVA FOR TRAINING MINISTERS OF THE

REFORMED CHURCHES AT HOME AND ABROAD 803

§ 162. CALVIN'S INFLUENCE UPON THE REFORMED CHURCHES OF THE

CONTINENT 806

§ 163. CALVIN'S INFLUENCE ON THE BRITISH REFORMATION 816

CHAPTER XVIII.

CLOSING SCENES IN THE LIFE OF CALVIN.

§ 164. CALVIN'S DEATH AND BURIAL 820

§ 165. CALVIN'S TESTAMENT AND FAREWELLS 828

§ 166. CALVIN'S PERSONAL CHARACTER 834

CHAPTER XIX.

THEODORE BEZA.

§ 167. THE YOUTH OF BEZA. (With Portrait) 846

§ 168. BEZA AT LAUSANNE AND AS DELEGATE TO THE GERMAN

PRINCES 851

§ 169. BEZA AT GENEVA TILL THE DEATH OF CALVIN 854

§ 170. BEZA AT THE CONFERENCE OF POISSY 856

§ 171. BEZA AS THE COUNSELLOR OF THE HUGUENOT LEADERS 858

§ 172. BEZA AS THE SUCCESSOR OF CALVIN, DOWN TO 1586 862

§ 173. BEZA'S CONFERENCES WITH LUTHERANS 866

§ 174. BEZA AND HENRY IV 867

§ 175. BEZA'S LAST DAYS 868

§ 176. BEZA'S WRITINGS 871

APPENDIX.

LITERATURE ON THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE. (With Portrait of

Jacques Le Fevre) 877

ALPHABETICAL INDEX 883

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

MAP OF SWITZERLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY . Frontispiece

ZWINGLI. After the Oil-Painting in Ziirich ..... 16

WlLDHAUS, ZWINGLI'S BIRTHPLACE ...... 22

THE GREAT MINSTER AT ZURICH IN 1519 39

ZURICH IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 63

LEO JUD.E, THE TRANSLATOR OF THE Swiss BIBLE ... 64

PIERPAOLO VERGERIO, REFORMER OF THE ITALIAN GRISONS . 147

THE ABBEY OF EINSIEDELN IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY . . 197

HENRY BULLINGER 202

WILLIAM FAREL 236

JOHN CALVIN. After the Oil-Painting in Geneva .... 256

BERNARDINO OCHINO 638

MICHAEL SERVETUS 681

THEODORE BEZA 847

JACOBUS FABER (JACQUES LE FEVRE) 876

xix

HISTOEY

THE REFORMATION.

SECOND BOOK.

THE SWISS REFORMATION.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

§ 1. Switzerland before the Reformation.

SWITZERLAND belongs to those countries whose historic
significance stands in inverse proportion to their size. God
often elects small things for great purposes. Palestine gave
to the world the Christian religion. From little Greece pro
ceeded philosophy and art. Switzerland is the cradle of the
Reformed churches. The land of the snow-capped Alps is
the source of mighty rivers, and of the Reformed faith, as
Germany is the home of the Lutheran faith ; and the princi
ples of the Swiss Reformation, like the waters of the Rhine
and the Rhone, travelled westward with the course of the
sun to France, Holland, England, Scotland, and to a new
continent, which Zwingli and Calvin knew only by name.
Compared with intellectual and moral achievements, the
conquests of the sword dwindle into insignificance. Ideas
rule the world ; ideas are immortal.

Before the sixteenth century, Switzerland exerted no influ
ence in the affairs of Europe except by the bravery of its
inhabitants in self-defence of their liberty and in foreign

2 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

wars. But in the sixteenth century she stands next to Ger
many in that great religious renovation which has affected
all modern history.1

The Republic of Switzerland, which has maintained itself
in the midst of monarchies down to this day, was founded
by "the eternal covenant" of the three "forest cantons,"
Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, August 1, 1291, and grew
from time to time by conquest, purchase, and free associa
tion. Lucerne (the fourth forest canton) joined the confed
eracy in 1332, Zurich in 1351, Glarus and Zug in 1352, Berne
in 1353, Freiburg and Solothurn (Soleur) in 1481, Basle and
Schaffhausen in 1501, Appenzell in 1513, — making in all
thirteen cantons at the time of the Reformation. With them
were connected by purchase, or conquest, or free consent,
as common territories or free bailiwicks,2 the adjoining lands
of Aargau, Thurgau, Wallis, Geneva, Graubiindten (Grisons,
Rhatia), the princedom of Neuchatel and Valangin, and sev
eral cities (Biel, Miihlhausen, Rotweil, Locarno, etc.). Since
1798 the number of cantons has increased to twenty-two,
with a population of nearly three millions (in 1890). The
Republic of the United States started with thirteen States,
£,nd has grown likewise by purchase or conquest and the
organization and incorporation of new territories, but more
rapidly, and on a much larger scale.

The romantic story of William Tell, so charmingly told
by ./Egidius Tschudi, the Swiss Herodotus,3 and by Johannes

1 " The affairs of Switzerland," says Hallam (Middle Ages, II. 108, Am.
ed.), "occupy a very small space in the great chart of European history;
but in some respects they are more interesting than the revolutions of mighty
kingdoms. Nowhere besides do we find so many titles to our sympathy, or
the union of so much virtue with so complete success. . . . Other nations
displayed an insuperable resolution in the defence of walled towns ; but the
steadiness of the Swiss in the field of battle was without a parallel, unless we
recall the memory of Lacedaemon."

2 They were called gemeine Herrschaften or Vogteien and zugeivandte Orte.

3 Or the father of Swiss historiography, as he is also called. His Chronicon
Helveticum or Eidgenossische Chronik (1000-1470) was first edited by Professor

§ 1. SWITZERLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 3

von Miiller, the Swiss Tacitus, and embellished by the poetic
genius of Friedrich Schiller, must be abandoned to the realm
of popular fiction, like the cognate stories of Scandinavian
and German mythology, but contains, nevertheless, an abid-
irtg element of truth as setting forth the spirit of those bold
mountaineers who loved liberty and independence more than
their lives, -and expelled the foreign invaders from their soil.
The glory of an individual belongs to the Swiss people. The
sacred oath of the men of Griitli on the Lake of Lucerne,
at the foot of Seelisberg (1306 or 1308?), and the more
certain confederation of Dec. 9, 1315, at Brunnen, were
renewals of the previous covenant of 1291. 1

The Swiss successfully vindicated their independence
against the attacks of the House of Habsburg in the mem
orable battles of Morgarten (" the Marathon of Switzerland,"
1315), Sempach (1386), and Nafels (1388), against King
Louis XI. of France at St. Jacob near Basle (the Thermopylae
of Switzerland, 1444), and against Duke Charles the Bold
of Burgundy at Granson, Murten (Morat), and Nancy (1476
and 1477).

Nature and history made Switzerland a federative republic.

Iselin, Basle, 1734 and '36, in 2 vols. ^Egidius Tschudi of Glarus (1505-
1572) derived the Tell legend from the Weisse Buck of Sarnen, and Etterlin of
Lucerne, and adorned it with his fancy and masterly power of narration. He
was a pupil of Zwingli, but remained in the old church. In a letter to Zwingli,
February, 1517, he says, "Non cum aliquo docto libentius esse velim, guam tecum."
Zw., Opera, VII. 21. The MS. of his Chronik is preserved in the city library
of Zurich. It is carefully described, with a facsimile in the Neujahrsblatt of
the Stadtbibliothek in Zurich auf das Jahr 1889 (Zurich, Orell Fiissli & Co.).

1 On the origin of the Swiss Confederation and the Tell and Griitli legends,
see the critical researches of Kopp, Urkunden zur Geschichte der eidgenossischen
Biinde, Luzern, 1835, and "Wien, 1851, 2 vols. Hisely, Recherches critiques sur
Guillaume Tell, Lausanne, 1843. Kopp, Zur Tell-Sage, Luzern, 1854 and '56.
Karl Hagen, Die Politik der Kaiser Rudolf von Habsburg und Albrecht /. und
die Entstehung der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft, Bern, 1857. G. von Wyss,
Die Gesch. der drei Lander Uri, Schwyz und Untencalden, 1212-1315, Zurich,
1858; Zurich am Ausgange des dreizehnten Jahrh., Zurich, 1876. A. Rilliet, Les
origines de la confederation suisse, histoire et le'gende, 2d ed., Geneve, 1869.
Dierauer, Gesch. der Schweiz. Eidgenossenschaft, Gotha, 1887, vol. I. 81-151.

THE SWISS REFORMATION.

This republic was originally a loose, aristocratic confederacy
of independent cantons, ruled by a diet of one house where
each canton had the same number of deputies and votes, so
that a majority of the Diet could defeat a majority of the
people. This state of things continued till 1848, when (after
the defeat of the /Sonderbund of the Roman Catholic cantons)
the constitution was remodelled on democratic principles,
after the American example, and the legislative power vest,ed
in two houses, one (the StanderatJi or Senate) consisting of
forty-four deputies of the twenty-two sovereign cantons (as
in the old Diet), the other (the Nationalrath or House of
Representatives) representing the people in proportion to
their number (one to every twenty thousand souls) ; while
the executive power was given to a council of seven mem
bers (the Bundesratli) elected for three years by both
branches of the legislature. Thus the confederacy of can
tons was changed into a federal state, with a central gov
ernment elected by the people and acting directly on the
people.1

This difference in the constitution of the central authority
must be kept in mind in order to understand why the Refor
mation triumphed in the most populous cantons, and yet was
defeated in the Diet.2 The small forest cantons had each
as many votes as the much larger cantons of Zurich and
Berne, and kept out Protestantism from their borders till
the year 1848. The loose character of the German Diet and
the absence of centralization account in like manner for the
victory of Protestantism in Saxony, Hesse, and other states

1 The Staatenbund became a Bnndesstaat. The same difference exists be
tween the American Confederacy during the Revolutionary War and the
United States after the war, as also between the old German Bund and the
new German Empire.

2 The numerical strength of Protestantism at the death of Zwingli was
probably not far from two-thirds of the population. The relation of the two
confessions has undergone no material change in Switzerland. In 1888 the
Protestants numbered 1,724,257 ; the Roman Catholics, 1,190,008 ; the Jews,

and imperial cities, notwithstanding the hostile resolutions
of the majority of the Diet, which again and again demanded
the execution of the Edict of Worms.

The Christianization of Switzerland began in the fourth
or third century under the Roman rule, and proceeded from
France and Italy. Geneva, on the border of France and
Savoy, is the seat of the oldest church and bishopric founded
by two bishops of Vienne in Southern Gaul. The bishopric
of Coire, in the south-eastern extremity, appears first in the
acts of a Synod of Milan, 452. The northern and interior
sections were Christianized in the seventh century by Irish
missionaries, Columban and Gallus. The last founded the
abbey of St. Gall, which became a famous centre of civiliza
tion for Alamannia. The first, and for a long time the only,
university of Switzerland was that of Basle (1460), where one
of the three reformatory councils was held (1430). During
the Middle Ages the whole country, like the rest of Europe,
was subject to the Roman see, and no religion was tolerated
but the Roman Catholic. It was divided into six episcopal
dioceses, — Geneva, Coire, Constance, Basle, Lausanne, and
Sioii (Sitten). The Pope had several legates in Switzerland
who acted as political and military agents, and treated the
little republic like a great power. The most influential
bishop, Schinner of Sion, who did substantial service to the
warlike Julius II. and Leo X., attained even a cardinal's hat.
Zwingli, who knew him well, might have acquired the same
dignity if he had followed his example.

§ 2. The Swiss Reformation.

The Church in Switzerland was corrupt and as much in
need of reform as in Germany. The inhabitants of the old
cantons around the Lake of Lucerne were, and are to this
day, among the most honest and pious Catholics ; but the
clergy were ignorant, superstitious, and immoral, and set a
bad example to the laity. The convents were in a state of

6 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

decay, and could not furnish a single champion able to cope
with the Reformers in learning and moral influence. Celibacy
made concubinage a common and pardonable offence. The
bishop of Constance (Hugo von Hohenlandenberg) absolved
guilty priests on the payment of a fine of four guilders for
every child born to them, and is said to have derived from
this source seventy-five hundred guilders in a single year
(1522). In a pastoral letter, shortly before the Reformation,
he complained of the immorality of many priests who openly
kept concubines or bad women in their houses, who refuse
to dismiss them, or bring them back secretly, who gamble,
sit with laymen in taverns, drink to excess, and utter blas
phemies.1

The people were corrupted by the foreign military service
(called Reislauferi), which perpetuated the fame of the Swiss
for bravery and faithfulness, but at the expense of indepen
dence and good morals.2 Kings and popes vied with each
other in tempting offers to secure Swiss soldiers, who often
fought against each other on foreign battle-fields, and re
turned with rich pensions and dissolute habits. Zwingii
knew this evil from personal experience as chaplain in the
Italian campaigns, attacked it before he thought of reforming
the Church, continued to oppose it when called to Zurich,
and found his death at the hands of a foreign mercenary.

On the other hand, there were some hopeful signs of
progress. The reformatory councils of Constance and Basle
were not yet entirely forgotten among the educated classes.
The revival of letters stimulated freedom of thought, and
opened the eyes to abuses. The University of Basle became

1 Schuler, Huldreich Zwingii, p. 196 ; Morikofer, Ulrich Zwingii, vol. I. 07.
Zwingii was reported to have said, that of a thousand priests and monks,
scarcely one was chaste. Egli, Actensammlung, p. 62.

2 Reislaufen means running to war (from Reis = Kriegszug, war). The
heroic devotion of Swiss soldiers in defence of foreign masters is immor
talized by the Thorwaldsen statue of the wounded lion in Luzern.

§ 2. THE SWISS REFORMATION. 7

a centre of literary activity and illuminating influences.
There Thomas Wyttenbach of Biel taught theology between
1505 and 1508, and attacked indulgences, the mass, and the
celibacy of the priesthood. He, with seven other priests, mar
ried in 1524, and was deposed as preacher, but not excom
municated. He combined several high offices, but died in
great poverty, 1526. Zwingli attended his lectures in 1505,
and learned much from him. In Basle, Erasmus, the great
luminary of liberal learning, spent several of the most active
years of his life (1514-1516 and 1521-1529), and published,
through the press of his friend Frobenius, most of his books,
including his editions of the Greek Testament. In Basle
several works of Luther were reprinted, to be scattered
through Switzerland. Capito, Hedio, Pellican, and CEco-
lampadius likewise studied, taught, and preached in that city.

But the Reformation proceeded from Zurich, not from
Basle, and was guided by Zwingli, who combined the human
istic culture of Erasmus with the ability of a popular preacher
and the practical energy of an ecclesiastical reformer.

The Swiss Reformation may be divided into three acts and
periods, —

I. The Zwinglian Reformation in the German cantons
from 1516 to Zwingli's death and the peace of Cappel, 1531.

II. The Calvinistic Reformation in French Switzerland
from 1531 to the death of Calvin, 1564.

III. The labors of Bullinger in Zurich (d. 1575), and Beza
in Geneva (d. 1605) for the consolidation of the work of
their older friends and predecessors.

The Zwinglian movement was nearly simultaneous with
the German Reformation, and came to an agreement with it
at Marburg in fourteen out of fifteen articles of faith, the
only serious difference being the mode of Christ's presence
in the eucharist. Although Zwingli died in the prime of
life, he already set forth most of the characteristic features
of the Reformed Churches, at least in rough outline.

8 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

But Calvin is the great theologian, organizer, and discip
linarian of the Reformed Church. He brought it nearer the
Lutheran Church in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, but
he widened the breach in the doctrine of predestination.

Zwingli and Bullinger connect the Swiss Reformation
with that of Germany, Hungary, and Bohemia; Calvin and
Beza, with that of France, Holland, England, and Scotland.

§ 3. The Grenius of the Swiss Reformation compared with

the Crerman.

On the difference between the Lutheran and the Reformed Confessions see
GOBEL, HUNDESHAGEN, SCIINEKENBURGER, SCHWEIZER, etc., quoted in
SCHAFF, Creeds of Christendom, vol. I. 211.

Protestantism gives larger scope to individual and national
freedom and variety of development than Romanism, which
demands uniformity in doctrine, discipline, and worship. It
has no visible centre or headship, and consists of a number
of separate and independent organizations under the invisi
ble headship of Christ. It is one flock, but in many folds.
Variety in unity and unity in variety are the law of God in
nature and history. Protestantism so far has fully developed
variety, but not yet realized unity.

The two original branches of evangelical Christendom are
the Lutheran and the Reformed Confessions. They are as
much alike and as much distinct as the Greek and the Roman
branches of Catholicism, which rest on the national bases of
philosophical Greece and political Rome. They are equally
evangelical, and admit of tin organic union, which has actu
ally been effected in Prussia and other parts of Germany
since the third anniversary of the Reformation in 1817.
Their differences are theological rather than religious ; they
affect the intellectual conception, but not the heart and soul
of piety. The only serious doctrinal difference which divided
Luther and Zwingli at Marburg was the mode of the real
presence in the eucharist ; as the double procession of the

§ 3. SWISS REFORMATION COMPARED WITH GERMAN. 9

Holy Spirit was for centuries the only doctrinal difference
between the Greek and Roman Churches. But other differ
ences of government, discipline, worship, and practice devel
oped themselves in the course of time, and overshadowed
the theological lines of separation.

The Lutheran family embraces the churches which bear
the name of Luther and accept the Augsburg Confession;
the Reformed family (using the term Reformed in its historic
and general sense) comprehends the churches which trace
their origin directly or indirectly to the labors of Zwingli
and Calvin.1 In England the second or Puritan Reformation
gave birth to a number of new denominations, which, after
the Toleration Act of 1689, were organized into distinct
Churches. In the eighteenth century arose the Wesleyan
revival movement, which grew into one of the largest and
most active churches in the English-speaking world.

Thus the Reformation of the sixteenth century is the
mother or grandmother of at least half a dozen families of
evangelical denominations, not counting the sub-divisions.
Lutheranism has its strength in Germany and Scandinavia ;
the Reformed Church, in Great Britain and North America.

The Reformed Confession has developed different types.
Travelling westward with the course of Christianity and
civilization, it became more powerful in Holland, England,
and Scotland than in Switzerland ; but the chief characteris
tics which distinguish it from the Lutheran Confession were
already developed by Zwingli and Calvin.

1 On the Continent and in works of church history the designation Re
formed includes Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and other
non-Lutheran Protestants. Calvinism and Puritanism are not church terms,
hut denote schools and parties within the Reformed churches. The Anglican
Reformed Church stands by itself as a communion which was reformed under
Lutheran and Calvinistic influences, but occupies a position between Catholi
cism and Protestantism. In modern English and American usage, the term
Reformed has assumed a restricted sectional sense in connection with other
terms, as "Reformed Dutch, Reformed German, Reformed Presbyterian, Re
formed Episcopalian.

10 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

The Swiss and the German Reformers agreed in opposition
to Romanism, but the Swiss departed further from it. The
former were zealous for the sovereign glory of God, and, in
strict interpretation of the first and second commandments,
abolished the heathen elements of creature worship ; while
Luther, in the interest of free grace and the peace of con
science, aimed his strongest blows at the Jewish element of
monkish legalism and self-righteousness. The Swiss theol
ogy proceeds from God's grace to man's needs ; the Lutheran,
from man's needs to God's grace.

Both agree in the three fundamental principles of Protes
tantism: the absolute supremacy of the Divine Scriptures
as a rule of faith and practice ; justification by free grace
through faith ; the general priesthood of the laity. But as
regards the first principle, the Reformed Church is more
radical in carrying it out against human traditions, abolish
ing all those which have no root in the Bible ; while Luther
retained those which are not contrary to the Bible. As
regards justification by faith, Luther made it the article of
the standing or falling Church; while Zwingli and Calvin
subordinated it to the ulterior truth of eternal foreordination
by free grace, and laid greater stress on good works and strict
discipline. Both opposed the idea of a special priesthood
and hierarchical rule ; but the Swiss Reformers gave larger
scope to the popular lay element, and set in motion the
principle of congregational and synodical self-government
and self-support.

Both brought the new Church into close contact with the
State ; but the Swiss Reformers controlled the State in the
spirit of republican independence, which ultimately led to a
separation of the secular and spiritual powers, or to a free
Church in a free State (as in the free churches of French
Switzerland, and in all the churches of the United States) ;
while Luther and Melanchthon, with their native reverence
for monarchical institutions and the German Empire, taught

§ 3. SWISS REFORMATION COMPARED WITH GERMAN. 11

passive obedience in politics, and brought the Church under
bondage to the civil authority.

All the evangelical divines and rulers of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries were inconsistently intolerant in
theory and practice ; but the Reformation, which was a
revolt against papal tyranny and a mighty act of emancipa
tion, led ultimately to the triumph of religious freedom as
its legitimate fruit.

The Reformed Church does not bear the name of any
man, and is not controlled by a towering personality, but
assumed different types under the moulding influence of
Zwingli and Bullinger in Zurich, of (Ecolampadius in Basle,
of Haller in Berne, of Calvin and Beza in Geneva, of Ursi-
nus and Olevianus in the Palatinate, of Cranmer, Latimer,
and Ridley in England, of Knox in Scotland. The Lutheran
Church, as the very name indicates, has the stamp of Luther
indelibly impressed upon it ; although the milder and more
liberal Melanchthonian tendency has in it a legitimate place
of honor and power, and manifests itself in all progressive
and unionistic movements as those of Calixtus, of Spener,
and of the moderate Lutheran schools of our age.

Calvinism has made a stronger impression on the Latin
and Anglo-Saxon races than on the German ; while Luther-
anism is essentially German, and undergoes more or less
change in other countries.

Calvin aimed at a reformation of discipline as well as the1-
ology, and established a model theocracy in Geneva, which
lasted for several generations. Luther contented himself
with a reformation of faith and doctrine, leaving the practi
cal consequences to time, but bitterly lamented the Antino-
mian disorder and abuse which for a time threatened to
neutralize his labors in Saxony.

The Swiss Reformers reduced worship to the utmost
simplicity and naked spirituality, and made its effect for
kindling or chilling devotion to depend upon the personal

12 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

piety and intellectual effort of the minister and the merits
of his sermons and prayers. Luther, who was a poet and
a musician, left larger scope for the aesthetic and artistic
element; and his Church developed a rich liturgical and
hymnological literature. Congregational singing, however,
flourishes in both denominations ; and the Anglican Church
produced the best liturgy, which has kept its place to this
day, with increasing popularity.

The Reformed Church excels in self-discipline, liberality,
energy, and enterprise ; it carries the gospel to all heathen
lands and new colonies ; it builds up a God-fearing, manly,
independent, heroic type of character, such as we find among
the French Huguenots, the English Puritans, the Scotch
Covenanters, the Waldenses in Piedmont ; and sent in times
of persecution a noble army of martyrs to the prison and the
stake. The Lutheran Church cultivates a hearty, trustful,
inward, mystic style of piety, the science of theology, biblical
and historical research, and wrestles with the deepest prob
lems of philosophy and religion.

God has wisely distributed his gifts, with abundant oppor
tunities for their exercise in the building up of his kingdom.

§ 4. Literature on the Swiss Reformation.

Compare the literature on the Reformation in general, vol. VI. 89-03, and
the German Reformation, pp. 94-97. The literature on the Reformation in
French Switzerland will be given in a later chapter (pp. 223 sqq.).

The largest collection of the Reformation literature of German Switzer
land is in the Stddtbibliothek (in the Wasscrki 'relief and in the Cantonalbibliothek
of Zurich. The former includes the 200 vols. of the valuable MSS. collection
of SIMLER (d. 1788), and the Thesaurus Holtinyerianus. I examined these
libraries in August, 188G, with the kind aid of Profs. O. F. Fritsche, Alex.
Schweizer, Georg von Wyss, and Dr. Escher, and again in July, 1890.

For lists of books on Swiss history in general consult the following works:
GOTTLIEB EMAXUEL vox HALLER : Bibliothek der Schiceizer-Geschichte und oiler
Theile, so claliin Bczug haben (Bern, 1785-'88, 7 vols.) ; witli the continuations
of GEROLI> MEYER vox KXOXAU (from 1840-'45, Ziir., 1850) and LUDWIG vox
SINXER (from 1786-1851, Bern and Zurich, 1851). The Catalog der Stadtbib-
liothek in Zurich (Zurich, 1864-'G7, 4 Bde, much enlarged in the written cata-

§ 4. LITERATURE ON THE SWISS REFORMATION. 13

logues). E. FR. VON MULINEN: Prodromus einer Schweizer. Historiographie
(Bern, 1874). The author promises a complete Lexicon of Swiss chroniclers,
etc., annalists and historians in about 4 vols.

I. SOURCES : The works of ZWINGLI, (ECOLAMPADIUS, LEO JUDA:, BULLINGER,
WATT (VADIANUS), and other Reformers of the Swiss cantons.

HERMINJARD : Correspondance des Reformateurs. Geneve, 1866-'86. 7 vols.

BULLINGER (HEINRICH, Zwingli's successor, d. 1575) : Reformationsgeschichte,
nach den Autographen herausgeg. von J. J. Hottinger und H. H. Vb'geli.
Frauenfeld, 1838-'40, 3 vols. 8°. From 1519 to 1532. In the Swiss-
German dialect.

KESSLER (JOHANNES, Reformer of St. Gallen) : Sabbata. Chronik der Jahre
1523-39. Ed. by E. Gotzinger. St. Gallen, 1866-'68. 2 parts. Kessler
was the student whom Luther met at Jena on his return to Wittenberg
(see vol. VI. 385).

SIMLER (Jon. JAC.) : Sammlung alter und neuer Urkunden zur Beleuchtung der
Kirchengeschichte, vornehmlich des Schweizerlandes. Zurich, 1757-'63. 2 Bde
in 6 Theilen. 8°. Also the first 30 vols. of his above-mentioned collec
tion of MSS., which includes many printed pamphlets and documents.

Die Eidgenossischen Abschiede. Bd. III. Abth. 2: Abschiede von 1500-20,
bearbeitet von Segesser (Luzern, 1869) ; Bd. IV. 1 a : A.D. 1521-28, bear-
beitet von StricUer (Brugg, 1873); Bd. IV. 1 b : A.D. 1529-'32 (Zurich,
1876); Bd. IV. 1 c: A.D. 1533-40, bearbeitet von Deschivanden (Luzern,
1878) ; Bd. IV. 1 d : A.D. 1541-48, bearbeitet von Deschivanden (Luzern,
1882). The publication of these official acts of the Swiss Diet was begun
at the expense of the Confederacy, A.D. 1839, and embraces the period
from 1245 to 1848.

STRICKLER (Jon.) : Actensammlung zur Schweizerischen ReformationsgeschicJde in
den Jahren 1521-32. Zurich, 1878-'84. 5 vols. 8°. Mostly in Swiss-
German, partly in Latin. The fifth vol. contains Addenda, Registers, and
a list of books on the history of the Reformation to 1533.

EGLI (EMIL) : Actensammlung zur Geschichte der Zilrcher Reformation von 1519-
'33. Zurich, 1879. (Pages vii. and 947.)

STURLER (M. v.) : Urkunden der Bernischen Kirchenreform . Bern, 1862.
Goes only to 1528.

On the Roman Catholic side : Archivfilr die Schweizer. Reformations-Geschichte,
herausgeg. auf Veranstaltung des Schweizer. Piusvereins. Solothurn, 1868-
'76. 3 large vols. This includes in vol. I. the Chronik der Schweizerischen
Reformation (till 1534), by HANS SALAT of Luzern (d. after 1543), a his
torian and poet, whose life and writings were edited by Baechtold, Basel,
1876. Vol. II. contains the papal addresses to the Swiss Diet, etc. Vol.
III. 7-82 gives a very full bibliography bearing upon the Reformation
and the history of the Swiss Cantons down to 1871. This work is over
looked by most Protestant historians. Bullinger wrote against Salat a
book entitled Salz zum Salat.

14 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

II. LATER HISTORICAL WORKS :

HOTTINGER (Jon. HEiNRiCH, an eminent Orientalist, 1620-'67) : Histories.
Ecclesiastical Novi Test. Tiguri [Turici], 1651-'67. 9 vols. 8°. The last
four volumes of this very learned but very tedious work treat of the
Reformation. The seventh volume has a chapter of nearly 600 pages
(24-618) de Indulgentiis in specie !

HOTTINGER (Jon. JACOB, 1652-1735, third son of the former) : Helvetische
Kirchengeschichten, etc. Ziir., 1698-1729. 4 vols. 4°. Newly ed. by Wirz
and Kirchhofer. See below.

MISCELLANEA TIGURINA edita, inedita, vetera, nova, theologica, historica, etc., ed.
by J. J. ULRICH. Ziir., 1722-'24. 3 vols. 8°. They contain small biog
raphies of Swiss Reformers and important documents of Bullinger, Leo
Judas, Breitinger, Simler, etc.

FUSSLIX (or FUSSLI, JOH. CONR. F., 1704-1775) : Beitrdge zur Erlduterung der
Kirchenreformationsgeschichten des Schweizerlands. Ziir., 1740-'53. 5 vols.
8°. Contains important original documents and letters.

RUCHAT (ABRAH., 1680-1750) : Histoire de la Reformation de la Suisse, 1516-
1556. Geneve, 1727, '28. 6 vols. 8°. New edition with Appendixes by
L. VULLIEMIN. Paris and Lausanne, 1835-'38. 7 vols. 8°. Chiefly impor
tant for the French cantons. An English abridgment of the first four
vols. in one vol. by J. COLLIXSON (Canon of Durham), London, 1845,
goes to the end of A.D. 1536.

WIRZ (Lrmv.) and KIRCHHOFER (MELCII.) : Helvet. Kirchengeschichte. Aus
Jolt. Jac. Hottinger's dlterem Werke nnd anderen Quellen neu bearbeitet.
Ziirich, 1808-'19. 5 vols. The modern history is contained in vols. IV.
and V. The fifth vol. is by KIRCHHOFER.

MERLE D'AUBIGNE (professor of Church history at Geneva, d. 1872) : His
toire de la Reformation du 16 siecle. Paris, 1838 sqq. Histoire de la
Reformation au temps du Calvin. Paris, 1863-78. Both works were
translated and published in England and America, in various edi
tions.

TRECHSEL (FRIEBR., 1805-1885) : Beitriige zur Geschichte der Schtveiz. Refor-

mirtcn Kirche, zuniichst derjenigen des Cantons Bern. Bern, 1841, '42,

4 Hefte.
GIESELER (d. 1854) : Ch. Histori/. Germ. ed. III. A. 128 sqq.; 277 sqq. Am.

ed. vol. IV. 75-99, 209-217. His account is very valuable for the extracts

from the sources.

BAUR (d. at Tubingen, 1860) : Kirchengeschichte. Bd. IV. 80-96. Post
humous, Tubingen, 1863.

HAGENBACH (KARL RUD., professor of Church history at Basel, d. 1874) :
Geschichte der Reformation, 1517-1555. Leipzig, 1834, 4th ed. 1870
(vol. III. of his general Kirchengeschichte^). Fifth ed., with a literary and
critical appendix, by Dr. F. NIPPOLD, Leipzig, 1887. English translation
by Miss E. MOORE, Edinburgh and New York, 1878, 79, 2 vols.

§ 4. LITERATURE ON THE SWISS REFORMATION. 15

CHASTEL (ETIENNE, professor of Church history in the University of Geneva,
d. 1885) : Histoire du Christianisme, Tom. IV.: Age Moderne (p. 66 sqq.).
Paris, 1882.

BERNER BEITRAGE zur Geschichte der Schweizerischen Reformationskirchen. Von
BILLETER, FLUCKIGER, HUBLER, KASSER, MARTHALER, STRASSER. Mit
weiteren Beitrdgen vermehrt und herausgegeben von FR. NIPPOLD. Bern,
1884. (Pages 454.)

On the Confessions of the Swiss Reformation see SCHAFF : Creeds of Christen
dom, New York, 4th ed. 1884, vol. I. 354 sqq.

Biographies of ZWINGLI, CECOLAMPADIUS, LEO JUDM, BULLINGER, HALLER,
etc., will be noticed in the appropriate sections.

111. GENERAL HISTORIES OF SWITZERLAND.

MULLER (Jon. VON, the classical historian of Switzerland, d. 1809) : Geschichte
der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft, fortgesetzt von GLUTZ-BLOTZHEIM (d.
1818) und JOH. JAC. HOTTINGER. Vols. V. and VII. of the whole work.
A masterpiece of genius and learning, but superseded in its earlier part,
where he follows Tselmdi, and accepts the legendary tales of Tell and
Griitli. The Reformation history is by HOTTINGER (b. 1783, d. 1860),
and was published also under the title Gesch. der Eidgenossen wdhrend der
Zeit der Kirchentrennung. Zurich, 1825 and '29, 2 vols. It was continued
by VULLIEMIN in his Histoire de la confederation suisse dans les KVIe et
XVII6 siecles. Paris and Lausanne, 1841 and '42. 3 vols. The first of
these three volumes relates to the Reformation in French Switzerland,
which was omitted in the German work of Hottinger, but was afterwards
translated into German by others, and incorporated into the German
edition (Ziirich, 1786-1853, 15 vols. ; the Reformation period in vols.
VI.-X.). There is also a complete French edition of the entire History
of Switzerland by JOH. VON MULLER, GLUTZ-BLOTZHEIM, HOTTINGER,
VULLIEMIN, and MONNARD (Paris et Geneve, 1837-'51, 18 vols. Three
vols. from Vulliemin, five from Monnard, and the rest translated).

Other general Histories of Switzerland by ZSCHOKKE (1822, 8th ed. 1849;
Engl. transl. by Shaw, 1848, new ed. 1875), MEYER VON KNONAU (2 vols.),
VOGELIN (0 vols.), MORIN, ZELLWEGER, VULLIEMIN (German ed. 1882),
DANDLIKER (Zurich, 1883 sqq., 3 vols., illustr.), Mrs. HUG and RICH. STEAD
(London, 1890), and DIERAUER (Gotha, 1887 sqq.; second vol., 1892).

BLUNTSCHLI (J. C., a native of Zurich, professor of jurisprudence and inter
national law at Heidelberg, d. 1881) : Geschichte des Schweizerischen
Bnndesrechts von den ersten ewigen Bunden bis auf die Gegenwart. Stutt
gart, 2d ed. 1875. 2 vols. Important for the relation of Church and
State in the period of the Reformation (vol. I. 292 sqq.). L. R. VON
SALIS: Schweizerisches Bundesrecht seit dew. 29. Mai 1874. Bern, 1892.
3 vols. (also in French and Italian).

E. EGLI: Kirchengeschichte der Schweiz bis auf Karl d. Gr. Ziirich, 1892.

Comp. RUD. STAHELIN on the literature of the Swiss Reformation, from 1875-
1882, in Brieger's " Zeitschrift f iir Kirchengeschichte," vols. III. and VI.

'DOGMATA'-SANCTA- SALVTTM
AB:ENSECADO: .

H. ZWINGLI. From the original oil-painting of Hans Asper, in the City
Library of Zurich. Reproduced from a photograph of J. Ganz.

CHAPTER II.

ZWINGLI'S TRAINING.
§ 5. The Zwingli Literature.

The general literature in § 4, especially Bullinger's History and Egli's
Collection. The public libraries and archives in Zurich contain the various
editions of Zwingli's works, and the remains of his own library with marginal
notes, which were exhibited in connection with the Zwingli celebration in 1884.
See Zwingli- Ausstellung veranstaltet von der Stadtbibliothek in Zurich in Verbindung
mit dem Staatsarchiv und der Cantonalbibliothek. Zurich, 1884. A pamphlet of
24 pages, with a descriptive catalogue of Zwingli's books and remains. The
annotations furnish fragmentary material for a knowledge of his theological
growth. See Usteri's Initia Zwingli, quoted below.

I. SOURCES :

HULDREICH ZWINGLI : Opera omnia, ed. MELCHIOR SCHULER (d. 1869) and
JOH. SCHULTHESS (d. 1836). Tiguri, 1828-'42. 8 vols. Vols. I. and II.,
the German writings ; III.-VL, Scripta Latina ; VII. and VIII., Epistolae.
A supplement of 75 pages was ed. by G. SCHULTHESS (d. 1866) and
MARTHALER in 1861, and contains letters of Zwingli to Rhenanus and
others. A new critical edition is much needed and contemplated for the
" Corpus Ref ormatorum " by a commission of Swiss scholars. Zwingli's
Correspond, in HERMINJARD, vols. I. and II.

The first edition of Zwingli's Works appeared at Zurich, 1545, in 4 vols.
USTERI and VOGELIN: M. H. Zwingli's Schriften im Auszuge, Zurich,
1819 and '20, 2 vols. (A systematic exhibition of Zwingli's teaching in
modern German.) Another translation of select works into modern Ger
man by R. CHRISTOFFEL, Ziir., 1843, 9 small vols.

Comp. also PAUL SCHWEIZER (Staatsarchivar in Zurich, son of Dr. Alexander
Schweizer) : Zwingli-Autographen im Staats-Archiv zu Zurich. 1885. (23
pages ; separately publ. from the " Theol. Zeitschrif t aus der Schweiz.")

JOANNIS CEcOLAMPADii et HuLDRicHi ZwiNGLii Epistolarum libri IV. Basil.
1536.

HERMINJARD (A. L.) : Correspondance des Re'formateurs. Geneve, 1866 sqq.
Letters of Zwingli in vol. I. Nos. 82 and 146 (and eight letters to him,
Nos. 17, 19, 32, etc.), and in vol. II. No. 191 (and nine letters to him).

Briefwechsel des BEATUS RHENANUS. Gesammelt u. herausgeg. von Dr. ADELBERT
HORAWITZ und Dr. KARL HARTFELDER. Leipzig, 1886. Contains also
the correspondence between Rhenanus and Zwingli. See Index, p. 700.

18 THE SWISS KEFOKMATION.

II. BIOGRAPHIES OF ZWINGLI, INCLUDING SHORT SKETCHES :

OSWALD MYCONIUS : De Vita et Obitu Zw., 1536. Republ. in Vitce quatuor
Reformatorum, witli Preface by Neander, 1840. NUSCHELER, Ziirich, 1776.
J. CASPAR HESS: Vie d' Ulrich Zw ingle, Geneva, 1810 ; German ed. more
than doubled by a literary appendix of 372 pages, by LEONII. USTERI,
Ziirich, 1811, 2 vols. (Engl. transl. from the French by AIKEN, Lond.,
1812). ROTERMUND, Bremen, 1818. J. M. SCHULER : H. Zw. Gesch.
seiner Bildunq zam Reformator seines Vaterlandes. Ziir., 1818, 2d ed. 1819.
HORNER, Ziir., 1818. L. USTERI, in the Appendix to his ed. of Zwingli's
German works, Ziir., 1819. Several sketches of Z\vingli appeared in
connection with the celebration of the Zurich Reformation in 1819, espe
cially in the festal oration of J. J. HESS : Emendationis sacrorum benejicium,
Turici, 1819. J. J. HOTTINGER, Ziir., 1842 (translation by TH. C. PORTER :
Life and Times of U. Z., Harrisburg, Penn., 1857, 421 pages). ROBBINS, in
"Bibliotheca Sacra," Andover, Mass., 1851. L. MAYER, in his "History
of the German Ref. Church," vol. I., Philadelphia, 1851. DAN. WISE,
Boston, 1850 and 1882. ROEDER, St. Gallen and Bern, 1855. R. CHRIS-
TOFFEL, Elberfeld, 1857 (Engl. transl. by JOHN COCHRAN, Edinb., 1858).
SALOMON VOGELIN : Erinnerungen an Zw. Ziir., 1865. W. M. BLACKBURN,
Philad., 1868. * J. C. MORIKOFER, Leipzig, 1867 and '69, 2 vols. The best
biography from the sources. Dr. YOLKMAR: Vortrag, Ziir., 1870 (30 pages).
G. FINSLER : U. Zw., 3 Vortrage, Ziir., 1873. G. A. HOFF : Vie d'Ulr. Zw.,
Paris, 1882 (pp. 305). JEAN GROB, Milwaukee, Wis., 1883, 190 pages
(Engl. transl., N. York, 1884). CH. ALPHONSE Wrrz : Ulrich Zwingli,
Vortrihje, Gotha, 1884 (pp. 144). GUDER, in " Herzog's Encycl.," XVIII.
701-706; revised by R. STAIIELIN in second ed., XVII., 584-635. E.
COMBE: U. Z. ; le reformateur suisse. Lausanne, 1884 (pp. 40). H.
RORICH : U. Z. Notice biographiquc, Geneve, 1884 (pp. 40). J. G. HARDY :
U. Zwingli, or Zurich and its Reformer. Edinb., 1888.

III. ON ZWINGLI'S WIFE :

SALOMON HESS : Anna Reinhard, Gattin und Wittwe von U. Zwingli. Zurich,
2d ed. 1820. (Some truth and much fiction.) GEROLD MEYER VON
KNONAU : Ziige aus dem Leben der Anna Reinhard. Erlangen, 1835.
(Reliable.)

IV. COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESSES OF 1884 AT THE FOURTH CENTENNIAL

OF ZWINGLI'S BIRTH :

Comp. the list in the Zilricher Taschenbuch auf das Jahr 1885, pp. 265-268 ;

and FLAIGG, in Theol. Zeitschrift aus der Schweiz, 1885, pp. 219 sqq. Some of

the biographies mentioned sub II. are commemorative addresses.

* ALEX. SCHWEIZER (d. 1888) : Zwingli's Bedeutung neben Luther. Festrede in

der Universitdtsaula, Jan. 6, 2884, welter ausgefiihrt. Zur., 1884 (pp. 89).

Also a series of articles of Schweizer in the " Protestant. Kirchenzeitung,"

Berlin, 1883, Nos. 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 26, 27, in defence of Zwingli against the

charges of Janssen. Jon. MARTIN USTERI (pastor at Affoltern, then Prof.

at Erlangen, d. 1889): Ulrich Zwingli, ein Martin Luther ebenbiirtiger [?]

§ 5. THE ZWINGLI LITERATURE. 19

Zeuge des evang. Glaubens. Festschrift mit Vorrede von H. v. der Goltz.
Zurich, 1883 (144 pp.) ; Zwingli und Erasmus, Zurich, 1885 (39 pp.) ;
Initia Zwinglii, in the " Studien und Kritiken" for 1885 (pp. 607-672),
1886 (pp. 673-737), and 1889 (pp. 140 and 141). HUD. STAIIELIN: Hul-
dreich Zwingli und sein Re f or mat i on sw eric. Zum vierhundertjahrigen Geburt-
stag Z.'s danjestellt. Halle, 1883 (pages 81). ERNST STAIIELIN: H. Z.'s
Predigt an unser Schweizervolk und unsere Zeit. Basel, 1884. ERNST MUL-
LER: Ulrich Zw. Ein Bernisclier Beitray zur Zwinglifeier . Bern, 1884.
E. DIETZ : Vie d'U. Z. a V occasion du 400° anniversaire de sa naissance.
Paris and Strasbourg, 1884 (pp. 48).. HERM. SPORRI : Darch Gottes Gnadc
allein. Ztir Feier des 400 jiihr. Geb. tages Zw.'s. Hamburg, 1884. Jon. G.
DREYDORFF: U. Zw. Festpredigt. Leipzig. 1884. SAL. VOGELIN : U. Z.
Ziir., 1884. G. FINSLER (Zwingli's twenty-second successor as Antistes
in Zurich) : Ulrich Zw. Festschrift zur Feier seines 400 jiihr. Geburtstags.
Ziir., 3d ed. 1884 (transl. into Romansch by DARMS, Coire, 1884). FINSLER
and MEYER vox KNONAU : Festvortriige bei der Feier des 400 jiihr. Geburts
tags U. Z. Ziir., 1$84 (pp. 24). Finsler delivered also the chief address
at the unveiling of Zwingli's monument, Aug. 25, 1885. (EcusLi : Zur
Zwingli-Feier. Zur., 1884. Die Zwinglifeier in Bern, Jan. 6, 1884. Several
addresses, 80 pages. ALFRED KRAUSS (professor in Strassburg) : Zwingli.
Strassb., 1884 (pp. 19). AUG. BOUVIER : Foi, Culture et Patriotisme.
Deux discours a I'occasion du quatrieme centenaire de Ulrich Zwingli. Geneve
and Paris, 1884. (In "Nouvelles Paroles de Foi et de Liberte,'' and
separately.) W. GAMPER (Reform, minister at Dresden) : U. 7,. Fest
predigt zur 400 jdhr. Gedenkfeier seines G'eburtstages. Dresden, 1884.
G. K. vox TOGGENBURG (pseudonymous R. Cath.) : Die icahre Union und
die Ztcinglifeier. St. Gallon and Leipzig, 1884 (pp. 190). Zwing liana, in
the " Theol. Zeitschrift aus der Schweiz." Ziir., 1884, No. II. KAPPELER,
GROP, und EGG : Zur Erinnerung. Drei Reden gehalten in Kappel, Jan. 6,
1SS4. Affoltern a. A. 1884 (pp. 27). — In America also several addresses
were delivered and published in connection with the Zwingli commem
oration in 1883 and '84. Besides, some books of Zwingli's were repub-
lished; e.g. the Ilirt (Shepherd) by Riggenbach (Basel, 1884); the
Lehrbiichlein, Latin and German, by E. Egli (Ziir., 1884).

V. Ox THE THEOLOGY OF ZWINGLI :
Emv. ZELLER (professor of philosophy in Berlin) : Das theologische System

Zwingli's. Tubingen, 1853.
Cn. SIGWART : Ulrich Zwingli. Der Character seiner Theologie mit besonderer

Rucksicht aufPicus von Mirandola dargestellt. Stuttg. und Hamb., 1855.
HERM. SPORRI (Ref. pastor in Hamburg) : Zwingli- Studien. Leipzig, 1886

(pp. 131). Discussions on Zwingli's doctrine of the Church, the Bible,

his relation to humanism and Christian art.
* AUGUST BAUR (D.D., a Wiirtemberg pastor in Weilimdorf near Stuttgart) :

Zwingli's Theologie, ihr Werden und ihr fit/stem. Halle, vol. I. 1885 (pp.

543) '; vol. II. P. I., 1888 (pp. 400), P. II., 1889. This work does for Zwingli

what Jul. Kostlin did for Luther and A. Herrlinger for Melanchthon.

20 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

ALEX. SCHWEIZER, in his Festrede, treats more briefly, but very ably, of
Zwingli's theological opinions (pp. 60-88).

VI. RELATION OF ZWINGLI TO LUTHER AND CALVIN :

MERLE D'AUBIGNE : Le Lutheranisme et la Reformc. Paris, 1844. Engl. trans
lation : Luther and Calvin. N. York, 1845.

HUNDESHAGEN : Charakteristik U. Zwingli's und seines Reformationswerks unter
Vergleichung mit Luther und Calvin, in the " Studien und Kritiken," 1862.
Compare also his Beitrdge zur Kirchenverfassungsgeschichte und Kirchen-
politik, Bd. I. Wiesbaden, 1864, pp. 136-297. (Important for Zwingli's
church polity.)

G. PLITT (Lutheran) : Gesch. der ev. Kirche bis zum Augsburger Reichstage.
Erlangen, 1867, pp. 417-488.

A. F. C. VILMAR (Luth.) : Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli. Frankf.-a.-M., 1869.

G. UHLHORN (Luth.) : Luther and the Swiss, translated by G. F. KROTEL,

Philadelphia, 1876.
ZWINGLI WIRTH (Reformed) : Luther und Zwingli. St. Gallen, 1884 (pp. 37).

VII. SPECIAL POINTS IN ZWINGLI'S HISTORY AND THEOLOGY :
KRADOLFER : Zwingli in Marburg. Berlin, 1870.

EMIL EGLI: Die Schlacht von Cappel 1531. Mit 2 Pldnen und einem Anhang

ungedruckter Quellen. Ziir., 1873 (pp. 88). By the same: Das Religions-

gesprdch zu Marburg. Ziir., 1884. In the " Theol. Zeitschrift aus der

Schweiz."
MARTIN LENZ : Zwingli und Landgraf Philipp, in Brieger's " Zeitschrift fiir

Kirchengeschichte " for 1879 (Bd. III.).
H. BAVINCK : De ethick van U. Zwingli. Kampen, 1880.
JUL. WERDER: Zwingli als politischer Reformator, in the "Easier Beitrage zur

vaterland. Geschichte," Basel, 1882, pp. 263-290.
HERM. ESCHER : Die Glaubensparteien in der Schweiz. Eidgenossenschaft und

ihre Beziehungen zum Auslande von 1527-31. Frauenfeld, 1882. (pp.

326.) Important for Zwingli's Swiss and foreign policy, and his views

on the relation of Church and State.
W. OECHSLI : Die Anfdnge des Grlaubenskonfliktes zwischen Zurich und den Eidge-

nossen. Winterthur, 1883 (pp. 42).
MARTHALER : Zw.'s Lehre vom Glauben. Ziir., 1884.
AUG. BAUR: Die erste Ziiricher Disputation. Halle, 1883 (pp. 32).
A. ERICHSON : Zwingli's Tod und dessen Beurtheilung durch Zeitgenossen, Strassb.,

1883 (pp. 43) ; U. Zw. und die elsdssischen Reformatoren, Strassb., 1884

(pp.40).
FLUCKIGER : Zwingli's Beziehungen zu Bern, in the " Berner Beitrage." Bern,

1884.

J. MART. USTERI : Initia Zwinglii, and Zw. and Erasmus. See above, p. 18.
H. FENNER: Zw. als Patriot und Politiker. Frauenfeld, 1884 (pp. 38).

§ 6. ZWINGLI'S BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 21

G. HEER: U. Zw. ah Pfarrer von Glarus. Zurich, 1884 (pp. 42).

GUST. WEBER (musical director and organist of the Grossmiinster in Zurich) :

H. Zwingli. Seine Stellung zur Musik und seine Lieder. Zurich and Leipzig,

1884 (pp. 68).

A. ZAHX : Zwingli 's Verdienste um die biblische Abend mahlslchre. Stuttgart, 1884.
G. WUNDERLI : Zurich in der Periode 1519-31. Zurich, 1888.
On Zwingli and the Anabaptists, see the literature in § 24.

VIII. In part also the biographies of (ECOLAMPADIUS, BULLINGER, L»o
JUD.E, HALLER, etc.

The best books on Zwingli are Morikofer's biography, Usteri on the educa
tion of Zwingli, Baur on his theology, Escher and Oechsli on his state and
church polity, and Schweizer and R. Stahelin on his general character and
position in history.

§ 6. Zwingli' s Birth and Education.

FRANZ : Zwingli's Geburtsort. Beitray zur reformator. Jubelfeier 1819. (The
author was pastor of Wildhaus.) St. Gallen, 1818. SCHULER : Huldreich
Zwingli. Geschichte seiner Bildung zum Reformator des Vaterlandes. Zurich,
1819. (404 pp. Very full, but somewhat too partial, and needing correc
tion.)

HULDREICH or ULRICH ZWINGLI l was born January 1,
1484, seven weeks after Luther, in a lowly shepherd's cot
tage at Wildhaus in the county of Toggenburg, now belong
ing to the Canton St. Gall.

He was descended from the leading family in this retired
village. His father, like his grandfather, was the chief
magistrate (Ammanri) ; his mother, the sister of a priest
(John Meili, afterwards abbot of Fischingen, in Thurgau,
1510-1523) ; his uncle, on the father's side, dean of the
chapter at Wesen on the wild lake of Wallenstadt. He had
seven brothers (he being the third son) and two sisters.

The village of Wildhaus is the highest in the valley, sur
rounded by Alpine meadows and the lofty mountain scenery
of Northeastern Switzerland, in full view of the seven Chur-
firsten and the snow-capped Sentis. The principal industry
of the inhabitants was raising flocks. They are described as

1 The name is often misspelled Zwingel (by Luther), or Zwingle (by English
and American writers).

THE SWISS REFORMATION.

a cheerful, fresh and energetic people ; and these traits we
find in Zwingli.1 The Reformation was introduced there in
1523. Not very far distant are the places where Zwingli
spent his public life, — Glarus, Einsiedeln, and Zurich.

THE HOUSE WHERE ZWINGLI WAS BORN AT WILDHAUS IN TOGGENBURG.
(From Schuler's H. Zwingli?)

Zwingli was educated in the Catholic religion by his God
fearing parents, and by his uncle, the dean of Wesen, who
favored the new humanistic learning. He grew up a healthy,
vigorous boy. He had at a very early age a tender sense
of veracity as "the mother of all virtues," and, like young
Washington, he would never tell a lie.

When ten years of age he was sent from Wesen to a Latin
school at Basle, and soon excelled in the three chief branches
taught there, — Latin grammar, music and dialectics.

1 Morikofer (I. 4) : " Zwingli erinnert in seinem Wesen immer wieder an seine
kohe, helle Heimath; wir haben stets den in frischer Berglnft gestarkten nnd ge-
Alpensohn vor MH.S."

§ 6. ZWINGLl'S BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 23

Iii 1498 he entered a college at Berne under the charge
of Heinrich Wolflin (Lupulus), who was reputed to be the
best classical scholar and Latin poet in Switzerland, and
followed the reform movement in 1522.1

From 1500 to 1502 he studied in the University of Vienna,
which had become a centre of classical learning by the labors
of distinguished humanists, Corvinus, Celtes, and Cuspinian,
under the patronage of the Emperor Maximilian I.2 He stud
ied scholastic philosophy, astronomy, and physics, but chiefly
the ancient classics. He became an enthusiast for the human
ities. He also cultivated his talent for music. He played
on several instruments — the lute, harp, violin, flute, dulci
mer, and hunting-horn — with considerable skill. His papal
opponents sneeringly called him afterwards "the evangelical
lute-player, piper, and whistler." He regarded this innocent
amusement as a means to refresh the mind and to soften
the temper. In his poetical and musical taste he resembles
Luther, without reaching his eminence.

In 1502 he returned to Basle, taught Latin in the school
of St. Martin, pursued his classical studies, and acquired
the degree of master of arts in 1506 ; hence he was usually
called Master Ulrich. He never became a doctor of divinity,
like Luther. In Basle he made the acquaintance of Leo
Jud (Judge, also called Master Leu), who was graduated
with him and became his chief co-laborer in Zurich. Both
attended with much benefit the lectures of Thomas Wytten-
bach, professor of theology since 1505. Zwineli calls him his

O \) O

beloved and faithful teacher, who opened his eyes to several
abuses of the Church, especially the indulgences, and taught

1 Lupulus was deposed from his canonry for marrying in 1524, but rein
stated after the introduction of the Reformation. " Dass Lupulus eine unehe-
liche Tochter hatte (before his marriage), ivurde ihm leicht verziehen." Morikofer,
I. 7. He lamented Zwingli's early death in a Latin epitaph in verse.

2 There is no evidence that he became acquainted in Vienna with Eck and
Faber, the famous champion's of popery, nor with his friends Glareanus and
Vadianus. See Horawitz, Der Humanismus in Wien, 1883.

24 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

him " not to rely on the keys of the Church, but to seek the
remission of sins alone in the death of Christ, and to open
access to it by the key of faith." l

§ 7. Zwingli in G-larus.

G. HEER : Ulrich Zwingli als Pfarrer in Glarus. Zurich, 1884.

Zwingli was ordained to the priesthood by the bishop of
Constance, and appointed pastor of Glarus, the capital of the
canton of the same name.2 He had to pay over one hundred
guilders to buy off a rival candidate (Goldli of Zurich) who
was favored by the Pope, and compensated by a papal pen
sion. He preached his first sermon in Rapperschwyl, and
read his first mass at Wildhaus. He labored at Glarus ten
years, from 1506 to 1516. His time Avas occupied by preach
ing, teaching, pastoral duties, and systematic study. He
began to learn the Greek language " without a teacher," 3
that he might study the New Testament in the original.4
He acquired considerable facility in Greek. The Hebrew
language he studied at a later period in Zurich, but with
less zeal and success. He read with great enthusiasm the
ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, poets, orators, and
historians. He speaks in terms of admiration of Homer,
Pindar, Demosthenes, Cicero, Livy, Caesar, Seneca, Pliny,
Tacitus, Plutarch. He committed Valerius Maximus to
memory for the historical examples. He wrote comments

1 Werke, I. A. 254 ; Opera, III. 544. Leo Judge, in the preface to Zvvingli's
Annotations to the N. T., reports that Zwingli and he derived from Wytten-
bach's lectures in 1505 " quidquid nobisfuit solidce eruditionis."

'2 The church in which he preached is jointly occupied by the Roman
Catholics and the Protestants, the community being divided. The old church
burnt down in 1861, but a new and better one was built on the same spot.

3 "Absque duce," says Myconius, in a letter to Zwingli, Oct. 28, 1518. Opera,
VII. 51, 52.

4 Zwingli wrote to Joachim Watt from Glarus, Feb. 23, 1513 (Opera, VII.
0) : " Ita enim Greeds studere destinavi ut qui me prceter Deum amoveat, nesciam,
non glorice (quam nullis in rebus queer ere honeste possem), sed sacratissimarum
iiterarum ergo."

§ 7. ZWINGLI IN GLAKUS. 25

on Lucian. He perceived, like Justin Martyr, the Alexan
drian Fathers, and Erasmus, in the lofty ideas of the heathen
philosophers and poets, the working of the Holy Spirit, which
he thought extended beyond Palestine throughout the world.
He also studied the writings of Picus della Mirandola (d.
1494), which influenced his views on providence and pre
destination.

During his residence in Glarus he was brought into corre
spondence with Erasmus through his friend Loreti of Glarus,
called Glareanus, a learned humanist and poet-laureate, who
at that time resided in Basle, and belonged to the court of
admirers of the famous scholar. He paid him also a visit
in the spring of 1515, and found him a man in the prime of
life, small and delicate, but amiable and very polite. He
addressed him as "the greatest philosopher and theologian;"
he praises his " boundless learning," and says that he read
his books every night before going to sleep. Erasmus re
turned the compliments with more moderation, and speaks
of Zwingli's previous letter as being " full of wit and learned
acumen." In 1522 Zwingli invited him to settle in Zurich;
but Erasmus declined it, preferring to be a cosmopolite.
We have only one letter of Zwingli to Erasmus, but six of
Erasmus to Zwingli.1 The influence of the great scholar on
Zwingli was emancipating and illuminating. Zwingli, al
though not exactly his pupil, was no doubt confirmed by
him in his high estimate of the heathen classics, his opposi
tion to ecclesiastical abuses, his devotion to the study of the
Scriptures, and may have derived from him his moderate
view of hereditary sin and guilt, and the first suggestion of
the figurative interpretation of the words of institution of
the Lord's Supper.2 But he dissented from the semi-Pela-

1 Opera, vol. VII., pp. 10, 12, 221, 222, 251, 307, 310.

2 Melanchthon wrote, Oct. 12, 1529: "Cinglius mihi confessus est, se ex
Erasmi scriptis primum hausisse opinionem suam de coena Domini." Corp. Reform-
IV. 970.

26 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

gianism of Erasmus, and was a firm believer in predestina
tion. During the progress of the Reformation they were
gradually alienated, although they did not get into a per
sonal controversy. In a letter of Sept. 3, 1522, Erasmus
gently warns Zwingli to fight not only bravely, but also
prudently, and Christ would give him the victory.1 He did
not regret his early death. Glareanus also turned from him,
and remained in the old Church. But Zwingli never lost
respect for Erasmus, and treated even Hutten with generous
kindness after Erasmus had cast him off.2

On his visit to Basle he became acquainted with his biog
rapher, Oswald Myconius, the successor of CEcolampadius
(not to be confounded with Frederick Myconius, Luther's
friend).

Zwingli took a lively interest in public affairs. Three
times he accompanied, according to Swiss custom, the re
cruits of his congregation as chaplain to Italy, in the service
of Popes Julius II. and Leo X., against France. He wit
nessed the storming of Pavia (1512), 3 probably also the
victory at Novara (1513), and the defeat at Marignano
(1515). He was filled with admiration for the bravery of
his countrymen, but with indignation and grief at the demor
alizing effect of the foreign military service. He openly
attacked this custom, and made himself many enemies among
the French party.

His first book, "The Labyrinth," is a German poem against
the corruptions of the times, written about 1510.4 It repre
sents the fight of Theseus with the Minotaur and the wild
beasts in the labyrinth of the world, — the one-eyed lion

1 " Tu pugna, mi Zwingli, non modo fortiter, verum etiatn prudenter. Dabit
Christus, ut pugnes feliciter." Opera, VII. 221.

2 See vol. VI. 202, 427. On Zwingli's relation to Erasmus, see Morikofer,
I. 23 sqq., 176 sqq., and the monograph of Usteri quoted above, p. 19.

3 He gave a lively Latin narrative of the battle of the Swiss against the
French in Pavia to his friend Vadianus.

4 Opera (Deutsche Scliriften}, Tom. II. B. pp. 243-247.

§ 7. ZWINGLI IN GLARUS. 27

(Spain), the crowned eagle (the emperor), the winged lion
(Venice), the cock (France), the ox (Switzerland), the bear
(Savoy). The Minotaur, half man, half bull, represents, he
says, " the sins, the vices, the irreligion, the foreign service
of the Swiss, which devour the sons of the nation." His
second poetic work of that time, " The Fable of the Ox," l
is likewise a figurative attack upon the military service by
which Switzerland became a slave of foreign powers, espe
cially of France.

He superintended the education of two of his brothers
and several of the noblest young men of Glarus, as ^Egidius
Tschudi (the famous historian), Valentine Tschudi, Heer,
Nesen, Elmer, Brunner, who were devotedly and gratefully
attached to him, and sought his advice and comfort, as their
letters show.

Zwingli became one of the most prominent and influential
public men in Switzerland before he left Glarus ; but he was
then a humanist and a patriot rather than a theologian and
a religious teacher. He was zealous for intellectual culture
and political reform, but shows no special interest in the
spiritual welfare of the Church. He did not pass through a
severe struggle and violent crisis, like Luther, but by dili
gent seeking and searching he attained to the knowledge of
the truth. His conversion was a gradual intellectual process,
rather than a sudden breach with the world ; but, after he
once had chosen the Scriptures for his guide, he easily shook
off the traditions of Rome, which never had a very strong
hold upon him. That process began at Glarus, and was
completed at Zurich.

His moral character at Glarus and at Einsiedeln was,
unfortunately, not free from blemish. He lacked the grace
of continence, and fell with apparent ease into a sin which

1 Fabelgedicht vorn Ochsen und etlichen Thieren, Op., II. B. 257-269. The ox
is again the symbol of Switzerland. See the comments of the editors, pp. 262
sqq.

28 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

was so common among priests, and so easily overlooked if
only proper caution was observed, according to the wretched
maxim, "Si non caste, saltern caute" The fact rests on his
own honest confession, and was known to his friends, but
did not injure his standing and influence ; for he was in
high repute as a priest, and even enjoyed a papal pension.
He resolved to reform in Glarus, but relapsed in Einsiedeln
under the influence of bad examples, to his deep humiliation.
After his marriage in Zurich, his life was pure and honora
ble and above the reproach of his enemies.

NOTES ON ZWINGLI'S MORAL CHARACTER.

Recent discussions have given undue prominence to the blot which rests
on Zwingli's earlier life, while yet a priest in the Roman Church. Janssen,
the ultramontane historian, has not one word of praise for Zwingli, and
violates truth and charity by charging him with habitual, promiscuous, and
continuous licentiousness, not reflecting that he thereby casts upon the Roman
Church the reproach of inexcusable laxity in discipline. Zwingli was no
doubt guilty of occasional transgressions, but probably less guilty than the
majority of Swiss priests who lived in open or secret concubinage at that
time (see § 2, p. 6) ; yea, he stood so high in public estimation at Einsiedeln
and Zurich, that Pope Hadrian VI., through his Swiss agent, offered him every
honor except the papal chair. But we will not excuse him, nor compare his
case (as some have done) with that of St. Augustin ; for Augustin, when he
lived in concubinage, was not a priest and not even baptized, and he con
fessed his sin before the whole world with deeper repentance than Zwingli,
who rather made light of it. The facts are these : —

1) Bullinger remarks (Reformationsgesch. I. 8) that Zwingli was suspected
in Glarus of improper connection with several women (" well er wegen einiger
Weiber verargwohnt ?m?-"). Bullinger was his friend and successor, and would
not slander him; but he judged mildly of a vice which was so general among
priests on account of celibacy. He himself was the son of a priest, as was
also Leo Judas.

2) Zwingli, in a confidential letter to Canon Utinger at Zurich, dated
Einsiedeln, Dec. 3, 1518 (Opera, VII. 54-57), contradicts the rumor that he
had seduced the daughter of an influential citizen in Einsiedeln, but admits his
unchastity. This letter is a very strange apology, and, as he says himself, a
blateratio rather than a satisfactio. He protests, on the one hand (what Janssen
omits to state), that he never dishonored a married woman or a virgin or a
nun (" ea ratio nobis perpetuo fuit, nee alienum thorum conscendere, nee virginem
vitiare, nee Deo dicatam profanare"} ; but, on the other hand, he speaks lightly,
we may say frivolously, of his intercourse with the impure daughter of a
barber who was already dishonored, and apologizes for similar offences com-

§ 7. ZWINGLI IN GLABUS. 29

niitted in Glarus. This is the worst feature in the letter, and casts a dark
shade on his character at that time. He also refers (p. 57) to the saying
of -<?Eneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II.) : " Non est qui vigesimum annum excessit, nee
virginem tetigerit." His own superiors set him a bad example. Nevertheless
he expresses regret, and applies to himself the word, 2 Pet. 2 : 22, and says,
"Christus per nos blasphematur."

3) Zwingli, with ten other priests, petitioned the bishop of Constance in
Latin (Einsiedeln, July 2, 1522), and the Swiss Diet in German (Zurich, July
13, 1522), to permit the free preaching of the gospel and the marriage of the
clergy. He enforces the petition by an incidental confession of the scandalous
life of the clergy, including himself ( Werke, I. 39) : "Euer ehrsam Wysheit hat
bisher gesehen das unehrbar schandlich Leben, welches wir leider Usher gefuhrt
haben (wir wollen allein von uns selbst geredet haben) mit Frauen, damit wir mdn-
niglich tibel verargert und verbosert haben." But this document with eleven
signatures (Zwingli's is the last) is a general confession of clerical immorality
in the past, and does not justify Janssen's inference that Zwingli continued
such life at that time. Janssen (Ein zweites Wort an meine Kritiker, p. 47),
moreover, mistakes in this petition the Swiss word riiw (Ruhe, rest) for riiwen
(Reue, repentance), and makes the petitioners say that they felt "no repent
ance," instead of " no rest." The document, on the contrary, shows a decided
advance of moral sentiment as compared with the lame apology in the letter
to Utinger, and deeply deplores the state of clerical immorality. It is rather
creditable to the petitioners than otherwise ; certainly very honest.

4) In a letter to his five brothers, Sept. 17, 1522, to whom he dedicated a
sermon on " the ever pure Virgin Mary, mother of God," Zwingli confesses
that he was subject to Hoffahrt, Fressen, Unlauterkeit, and other sins of the
flesh (Werke, I. 86). This is his latest confession; but if we read it in connec
tion with the whole letter, it makes the impression that he must have under
gone a favorable change about that time, and concluded a regular, though
secret, connection with his wife. As to temperance, Bullinger (I. 305) gives
him the testimony that he was " very temperate in eating and drinking."

5) Zwingli was openly married in April, 1524, to Anna Reinhart, a respect
able widow, and mother of several children, after having lived with her about
two years before in secret marriage. But this fact, which Janssen construes
into a charge of " unchaste intercourse," was known to his intimate friends ;
for Myconius, in a letter of July 22, 1522, sends greetings to Zwingli and his
wife ("Vale cum uxore quam felicissime et tuis omnibus," Opera, VII. 210; and
again: "Vale cum uxore in Christo," p. 253). The same is implied in a letter
of Bucer, April 14, 1524 (p. 335; comp. the note of the editors). "The
cases," says Morikofer (I. 211), "were very frequent at that time, even with
persons of high position, that secret marriages were not ratified by a religious
ceremony till weeks and months afterwards." Before the Council of Trent
secret marriages were legitimate and valid. (Can. et Deer. Cone. Trt'd., Sess.
XXIV., Deer, de reform. matrimoniiJ)

Zwingli's character was unmercifully attacked by Janssen in his Geschichte
des deutschen Tolkes, III. 83 sq. ; An meine Kritiker (1883), 127-140; Ein
zweites Wort an meine Kritiker (1883), 45-48; defended as far as truth permits

30 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

by Ebrard, Janssen und die Reformation (1882) ; Usteri, Ulrich Zwingli (1883),
34-47 ; Alex. Schweizer, articles in the " Protest. Kirchenzeitung," Berlin,
1883, Nos. 23-27. Janssen answered Ebrard, but not Usteri and Schvveizer.
The main facts were correctly stated before this controversy by Morikofer, I.
49-53 and 128), and briefly also by Hagenbach, and Merle (bk. VIII. ch. 6).

§ 8. Zwingli in Einsiedeln.

In 1516 Zwingli left Glarus on account of the intrigues
of the French political party, which came into power after
the victory of the French at Marignano (1515), and accepted
a call to Einsiedeln, but kept his charge and expected to
return ; for the congregation was much attached to him, and
promised to build him a new parsonage. He supplied the
charge by a vicar, and drew his salary for two years, until
he was called to Zurich, when he resigned.

Einsiedeln : is a village with a Benedictine convent in the
Catholic canton Schwyz. It was then, and is to this day,
a very famous resort of pilgrims to the shrine of a wonder
working black image of the Virgin Mary, which is supposed
to have fallen from heaven. The number of annual pilgrims
from Switzerland, Germany, France, and Italy exceeds a
hundred thousand.

Here, then, was a large field of usefulness for a preacher.
The convent library afforded special facilities for study.

Zwingli made considerable progress in his knowledge of
the Scriptures and the Fathers. He read the annotations of
Erasmus and the commentaries of Origen, Ambrose, Jerome,
and Chrysostom. He made extracts on the margin of his
copies of their works which are preserved in the libraries at
Zurich. He seems to have esteemed Origen, Jerome, and
Chrysostom more, and Augustin less, than Luther did ; but
he also refers frequently to Augustin in his writings.2

1 Maria-Einsiedeln, Deiparae Virginis Eremus, Eremitarum Ccenobium in
Helvetiis, Notre-Dame-des-Eremites.

2 Usteri has examined the marginal annotations in Zwingli's patristic
library, and gives the scanty results in his Initia Zwinglii, in " Studien und
Kritiken," 1886, p. 681 sq. The Zwingli library was on exhibition at Zurich,
Jan. 4-13, 1884, and a catalogue printed.

§ 8. ZWINGLI IN EINSIEDELN. 81

We have an interesting proof of his devotion to the Greek
Testament in a MS. preserved in the city library at Zurich.
In 1517 he copied with his own hand very neatly the Epistles
of Paul and the Hebrews in a little book for constant and
convenient use. The text is taken from the first edition of
Erasmus, which appeared in March, 1516, and corrects some
typographical errors. It is very legible and uniform, and
betrays an experienced hand ; the marginal notes, in Latin,
from Erasmus and patristic commentators, are very small
and almost illegible. On the last page he added the follow
ing note in Greek : —

" These Epistles were written at Einsiedeln of the blessed
Mother of God by Huldreich Zwingli, a Swiss of Toggen-
burg, in the year one thousand five hundred and seventeen
of the Incarnation, in the month of June.1 Happily ended."2

At the same time he began at Einsiedeln to attack from
the pulpit certain abuses and the sale of indulgences, when
Samson crossed the Alps in August, 1518. He says that he
began to preach the gospel before Luther's name was known
in Switzerland, adding, however, that at that time he de-

1 Skirophorion, i.e. the 12th Attic month, answering to the latter part of
June and the first part of July. 2,Kipo<b6pia was the festival of Athena 2,Kipds,
celebrated in that month. The year (1517) refutes the error of several biog
raphers, who date the MS. back to the period of Glarus. Besides, there was
no printed copy of the Greek Testament before 1510.

~ The subscription (as I copied it, with its slight errors, in the Wasserkirche,
Aug. 14, 1886) reads as follows : —

Tavrai at >E7ri'(rToAcu[a:] ypatyelaai

'Ep-f]/uov TTJS fj.a.Kop'La.s deo-

TQKOV, trapa Tea 'T\5e-

pvj(_V Zvyy\icf Acoy-

yicp e\^fTiCf}, ^i'Ai'o-

ffTCj) ireVTO.K

67rra Kal Senar

airb rf)s 6eoyo-

vias, /uLf]vbs

ffKippcxpopi-

cavos

32 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

pended too much on Jerome and other Fathers instead of
the Scriptures. He told Cardinal Schinner in 1517 that
popery had poor foundation in the Scriptures. Myconius,
Bullinger, and Capito report, in substantial agreement, that
Zwingli preached in Einsiedeln against abuses, and taught
the people to worship Christ, and not the Virgin Mary.
The inscription on the entrance gate of the convent, prom
ising complete remission of sins, was taken down at his
instance.1 Beatus Rhenanus, in a letter of Dec. 6, 1518,
applauds his attack upon Samson, the restorer of indul
gences, and says that Zwingli preached to the people the
purest philosophy of Christ from the fountain.2

On the strength of these testimonies, many historians
date the Swiss Reformation from 1516, one year before
that of Luther, which began Oct. 31, 1517. But Zwin-
gli's preaching at Einsiedeln had no such consequences as
Luther's Theses. He was not yet ripe for his task, nor
placed on the proper field of action. He was at that
time simply an Erasmian or advanced liberal in the
Roman Church, laboring for higher education rather than
religious renovation, and had no idea of a separation. He
enjoyed the full confidence of the abbot, the bishop of Con
stance, Cardinal Schinner, and even the Pope. At Schin-
ner's recommendation, he was offered an annual pension of
fifty guilders from Rome as an encouragement in the pursuit

1 The inscription was, "Hie est plena remissio omnium peccatorum a culpa et a
pcena." But the sermon against the worship of saints, pilgrimages and vows,
of which Bullinger speaks (I. 81), was preached later, in 1522, at the Feast
of Angels, during a visit of Zwingli to Einsiedeln. See Pestalozzi, Leo Judce,
p. 16, and Gieseler, III. i. p. 138.

2 Opera, VII. A. 57 : "Risimus abunde veniarum institorem [Bernh. Samson],
quern in litteris tuis graphice depinxisti. . . ." Then he complains that most of
the priests teach heathen and Jewish doctrines, but that Zwingli and his like
" purissimam Christi pkilosophiam ex ipsis fontibus populo proponere, non jScoticis
et Gabrielicis interpretationibus depravatam; sed ab Augustino, Ambrosio, Cypriano,
Hieronymo, germane et sincere expositam." Rhenanus contrasts the Fathers
with the Scholastics, Duns Scotus, and Gabriel Biel

§ 8. ZWINGLI IN EINSIEDELN. 33

of his studies, and he actually received it for about five
years (from 1515 to 1520). Pucci, the papal nuncio at
Zurich, in a letter dated Aug. 24, 1518, appointed him papal
chaplain (Accolitus Capellanus), with all the privileges and
honors of that position, assigning as the reason " his splendid
virtues and merits," and promising even higher dignities.1
He also offered to double his pension, and to give him in
addition a canonry in Basle or Coire, on condition that he
should promote the papal cause. Zwingli very properly de
clined the chaplaincy and the increase of salary, and declared
frankly that he would never sacrifice a syllable of the truth
for love of money ; but he continued to receive the former
pension of fifty guilders, which was urged upon him without
condition, for the purchase of books. In 1520 he declined
it altogether, — what he ought to have done long before.2
Francis Zink, the papal chaplain at Einsiedeln, who paid
the pension, was present at Zwingli's interview with Pucci,
and says, in a letter to the magistracy at Zurich (1521), that
Zwingli could not well have lived without the pension, but
felt very badly about it, and thought of returning to Ein
siedeln.3 Even as late as Jan. 23, 1523, Pope Adrian VI.,
unacquainted with the true state of things, wrote to Zwingli
a kind and respectful letter, hoping to secure through him
the influence of Zurich for the holy see.4

1 See the letter of Anthonius Puccius to Zwingli in Opera, VII. A. 48 sq.
The document of the appointment, with the signature and seal of the papal
legate, dated Sept. 1, 1518, is kept in the city library at Zurich.

2 Zwingli speaks of this pension very frankly and with deep regret in a
letter to his brothers (1522), and in his Exposition of the Conclusions (1523).
Werke, I. A. 86 and 354.

3 Opera, VII. A. 179 : "Ipse arbiter interfui, quum Domino Legato Pucci ingenue
fassus est, ipsum pecunice causa rebus Pap(R agendis non inserviturum," etc.

4 Opera, VII. A. 266. The Pope addresses Zwingli " Dilecte fill" praises
his " egregia virtus,1' assures him of his special confidence in him and his best
wishes for him. At the same time the Pope wrote to Francis Zink to spare
no effort to secure Zwingli for the papal interest ; and Zink replied to Myco-
nius, when asked what the Pope offered in return, "Omnia usque ad thronum
papalem." Zwingli despised it all. Ibid. p. 266, note.

34 THE SWISS ItEFOitMATIOX.

§ 9. Zwingli and Luther.

Comp. Vol. VI. 620-051, and the portrait of Luther, p. 107.

The training of Zwingli for his life-work differs consider
ably from that of Luther. This difference affected their
future work, and accounts in part for their collision when
they met as antagonists in writing, and on one occasion (at
Marburg) face to face, in a debate on the real presence.
Comparisons are odious when partisan or sectarian feeling is
involved, but necessary and useful if impartial.

Both Reformers were of humble origin, but with this dif
ference : Luther descended from the peasantry, and had a
hard and rough schooling, which left its impress upon his
style of polemics, and enhanced his power over the common
people ; while Zwingli was the son of a magistrate, the
nephew of a dean and an abbot, and educated under the in
fluence of the humanists, who favored urbanity of manners.
Both were brought up by pious parents and teachers in the
Catholic faith ; but Luther was far more deeply rooted in it
than Zwingli, and adhered to some of its doctrines, especially
on the sacraments, with great tenacity to the end. He also
retained a goodly portion of Romish exclusivism and intol
erance. He refused to acknowledge Zwingli as a brother,
and abhorred his view of the salvation of unbaptized chil
dren and pious heathen.

Zwingli was trained in the school of Erasmus, and passed
from the heathen classics directly to the New Testament.
He represents more than any other Reformer, except Me-
lanchthon, the spirit of the Renaissance in harmony with
the Reformation.1 He was a forerunner of modern liberal

1 Martin, in his Histoire de France, VIII. 156, makes a similar remark, "On
pent considerer I'ceuvre de Zwingli comme le plus 'puissant effort qui ait ete fuit
pour sanctifier la Renaissance et I'unir a la Re forme en Jesus- Christ.'" He calls
Zwingli (p. 168) the man of the largest thought and greatest heart of the
Reformation ("qui porte en lui la plus large pense'e et le plus grand coeur de la
Reformation ").

§ 9. ZWINGLI AND LUTHEK. 35

theology. Luther struggled through the mystic school of
Tauler and Staupitz, and the severe moral discipline of mo-
nasticism, till he found peace and comfort in the doctrine
of justification by faith. Both loved poetry and music next
to theology, but Luther made better use of them for public
worship, and composed hymns and tunes which are sung to
this day.

Both were men of providence, and became, innocently,
reformers of the Church by the irresistible logic of events.
Both drew their strength and authority from the Word of
God. Both labored independently for the same cause of
evangelical truth, the one on a smaller, the other on a much
larger field. Luther owed nothing to Zwingli, and Zwingli
owed little or nothing to Luther. Both were good scholars,
great divines, popular preachers, heroic characters.

Zwingli broke easily and rapidly with the papal system,
but Luther only step by step, and after a severe struggle
of conscience. Zwingli wTas more radical than Luther, but
always within the limits of law and order, and without a
taint of fanaticism ; Luther was more conservative, and yet
the chief champion of freedom in Christ. Zwingli leaned
to rationalism, Luther to mysticism ; yet both bowed to the
supreme authority of the Scriptures. Zwingli had better
manners and more self-control in controversy; Luther sur
passed him in richness and congeniality of nature. Zwingli
was a republican, and aimed at a political and social, as well
as an ecclesiastical reformation ; Luther was a monarchist,
kept aloof from politics and war, and concentrated his force
upon the reformation of faith and doctrine. Zwingli was
equal to Luther in clearness and acuteness of intellect and
courage of conviction, superior in courtesy, moderation,
and tolerance, but inferior in originality, depth, and force.
Zwingli's work and fame were provincial ; Luther's, world
wide. Luther is the creator of the modern high-German
book language, and gave to his people a vernacular Bible

36 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

of enduring vitality. Zwingli had to use the Latin, or to
struggle with an uncouth dialect ; and the Swiss Version of
the Bible by his faithful friend Leo Jud&e remained confined
to German Switzerland, but is more accurate, and kept pace
in subsequent revisions with the progress of exegesis. Zwingli
can never inspire, even among his own countrymen, the same
enthusiasm as Luther among the Germans. Luther is the
chief hero of the Reformation, standing in the front of the
battle-field before the Church and the world, defying the
papal bull and imperial ban, and leading the people of God
out of the Babylonian captivity under the gospel banner of
freedom.

Each was the right man in the right place ; neither could
have done the work of the other. Luther was foreordained
for Germany, Zwingli for Switzerland. Zwingli was cut
down in the prime of life, fifteen years before Luther ; but,
even if he had outlived him, he could not have reached the
eminence which belongs to Luther alone. The Lutheran
Church in Germany and the Reformed Church of Switzer
land stand to this day the best vindication of their distinct,
yet equally evangelical Christian work and character.

NOTES.

I add the comparative estimates of the two Reformers by two eminent and
equally unbiassed scholars, the one of German Lutheran, the other of Swiss
Reformed, descent.

Dr. Baur (the founder of the Tubingen school of critical historians) says : l
" When the two men met, as at Marburg, Zwingli appears more free, more
unprejudiced, more fresh, and also more mild and conciliatory ; while Luther
shows himself harsh and intolerant, and repels Zwingli with the proud word :
'We have another spirit than you.'2 A comparison of their controversial
writings can only result to the advantage of Zwingli. But there can be no
doubt that, judged by the merits and effects of their reformatory labors,
Luther stands much higher than Zwingli. It is true, even in this respect,
both stand quite independent of each other. Zwingli has by no means re
ceived his impulse from Luther ; but Luther alone stands on the proper field

1 Kirchengeschichte, IV. 87 eq.

- Martin, another impartial and dogmatically unbiassed writer, likewise gives, with refer
ence to the Marburg conference, " the honors of the debate, for logic and for moderation and
brotherly charity," to Zwingli. Hist, de France, VIII. 114, note. So does Dean Stanley.

§ 9. ZWINGLI AND LUTHER. 37

of battle where the cause of the Reformation had to be fought out. He is the
path-breaking Reformer, and without his labors Zwingli could never have
reached the historic significance which properly belongs to him alongside of
Luther." 1

Dr. Alexander Schweizer (of Zurich), in his commemorative oration of
1884, does equal justice to both: "Luther and Zwingli founded, each accord
ing to his individuality, the Reformation in the degenerated Church, both
strengthening and supplementing each other, but in many respects also going
different ways. How shall we estimate them, elevating the one, lowering the
other, as is the case with Goethe and Schiller 1 Let us rather rejoice, accord
ing to Goethe's advice, in the possession of two such men. May those Luther
ans who wish to check the growing union with the Reformed, continue to
represent Luther as the only Reformer, and, in ignorance of Zwingli's deep
evangelical piety, depreciate him as a mere humanistic illuminator : this shall
not hinder us from doing homage at the outset to Luther's full greatness, con
tented with the independent position of our Zwingli alongside of this first hero
of the Reformation; yea, we deem it our noblest task in this Zwingli festival at
Zurich, which took cheerful part in the preceding Luther festival, to acknowl
edge Luther as the chief hero of the battle of the Reformation, and to put
his world-historical and personal greatness in the front rank ; and this all the
more since Zwingli himself, and afterwards Calvin, have preceded us in this
high estimate of Luther." 2

Phillips Brooks (Bishop of Massachusetts, the greatest preacher of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, d. 1893) : " Of all the
Reformers, in this respect [tolerance], Zwingli, who so often in the days of
darkness is the man of light, is the noblest and clearest. At the conference
in Marburg he contrasts most favorably with Luther in his willingness to be
reconciled for the good of the common cause, and he was one of the very
few who in those days believed that the good and earnest heathen could be
saved." (Lectures on Tolerance, New York, 1887, p. 34.)

Of secular historians, J. Michelet (Histoire de France, X. 310 sq.) shows a
just appreciation of Zwingli, and his last noble confession addressed to the
King of France. He says of him : " Grand docteur, meilleur patriote, nature
forte et simple, il a montre le type merne, le vrai genie de la Suisse, dans sa fiere
inde'pendance de I'ltalie, de I'Allemagne. . . . Son langage a Francois 2er, digne
de la Renaissance, e'tablissait la question de I'Eglise dans sa grandeur." He then
quotes the passage of the final salvation of all true and noble men, which no
man with a heart can ever forget.

1 " Xeben Luther." This is the proper expression, which also Schweizer has chosen.
Usteri places Zwingli too high when he calls him " ein Martin Luther ebenbiirtiger Zeuge
des evangelischen Glaubens." He is independent, but not equal.

2 ZwinglVs Bedeutung neben Luther. Festrede zu Zwingli's 400 jahrigem Geburtstag
1 Jan., 1484, gehalten in der Universitdtsaula zu Zurich 7 Jan., 1884 (Zurich, 18&4), p. 3.

CHAPTER III.

THE REFORMATION IN ZURICH. 1519-1526.
§ 10. Zivingli called to Zurich.

THE fame of Zwingli as a preacher and patriot secured
him a call to the position of chief pastor of the Great Min
ster (Grossmiinster), the principal church in Zurich, which
was to become the Wittenberg of Switzerland. Many of
the Zurichers had heard him preach on their pilgrimages to
Einsiedeln. His enemies objected to his love of music and
pleasure, and charged him with impurity, adding slander to
truth. His friend Myconius, the teacher of the school con
nected with the church, exerted all his influence in his favor.
He was elected by seventeen votes out of twenty-four, Dec.
10, 1518.

He arrived in Zurich on the 27th of the month, and re
ceived a hearty welcome. He promised to fulfil his duties
faithfully, and to begin with the continuous exposition of the
Gospel of Matthew, so as to bring the whole life of Christ
before the mind of the people. This was a departure from
the custom of following the prescribed Gospel and Epistle
lessons, but justified by the example of the ancient Fathers,
as Chrysostom and Augustin, who preached on whole books.
The Reformed Churches reasserted the freedom of selecting
texts ; while Luther retained the Catholic system of peri-
copes.

Zurich, the most flourishing city in German Switzerland,

beautifully situated in an amphitheatre of fertile hills, on

the lake of the same name and the banks of the Limmat,

dates its existence from the middle of the ninth century,

S 10. ZWINGLI CALLED TO ZURICH.

when King Louis the German founded there the abbey of
Frauenmiinster (853). The spot was known in old Roman
times as a custom station {Turicwri). It became a free
imperial city of considerable commerce between Germany
and Italy, and was often visited by kings and emperors.
The Great Minster was
built in the twelfth cen
tury, and passed into
the Reformed commu
nion, like the minsters
of Basle, Berne, and
Lausanne, which are the
finest churches in Swit
zerland.

In the year 1315 Zu
rich joined the Swiss
confederacy by an eter
nal covenant with Lu
cerne, Uri, Schwyz, and
Unterwalden. This led
to a conflict with Aus
tria, which ended favor
ably for the confeder
acy.1

In the beginning of
the sixteenth century
Zurich numbered seven
thousand inhabitants. It was the centre of the interna
tional relations of Switzerland, and the residence of the
ambassadors of foreign powers which rivalled with each
other in securing the support of Swiss soldiers. This fact
brought wealth and luxury, and fostered party spirit and the

1 On the early history of Zurich, see Bluntschli, Geschichte der Republik
Zurich, 2d ed. 1850; G. v. Wyss, Zurich am Auscjanfjp. des 13ten Jahrh., 1876;
Dierauer, Geschichte der Schweiz. Eidgenossenschaft, vol. I. (1887), 171-217.

THE GREAT MINSTER IN ZURICH IN THE YEAR
1519. (After the copperplate of Hegi.)

40 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

lust of gain and power among the citizens. Bullinger says,
"Before the preaching of the gospel [the Reformation],
Zurich was in Switzerland what Corinth was in Greece." !

§ 11. Zwinglis Public Labors and Private Studies.

Zwingli began his duties in Zurich on his thirty-sixth
birthday (Jan. 1, 1519) by a sermon on the genealogy of
Christ, and announced that on the next day (which was a
Sunday) he would begin a series of expository discourses on
the first Gospel. From Matthew he proceeded to the Acts,
the Pauline and Catholic Epistles ; so that in four years he
completed the homiletical exposition of the whole New
Testament except the Apocalypse (which he did not regard
as an apostolic book). In the services during the week he
preached on the Psalms. He prepared himself carefully
from the original text. He probably used for his first course
Chrysostom's famous Homilies on Matthew. With the Greek
he was already familiar since his sojourn in Glarus. The
Hebrew he learned from a pupil of Reuchlin. who had come
to Zurich. His copy of Reuchliirs Rudimenta Hebraica is
marked with many notes from his hand.2

His sermons, as far as published, are characterized, as
Hagenbach says, " by spiritual sobriety and manly solidity."
They are plain, practical, and impressive, and more ethical
than doctrinal.

He made it his chief object "to preach Christ from the
fountain," and "to insert the pure Christ into the hearts."3
He would preach nothing but what he could prove from the
Scriptures, as the only rule of Christian faith and practice.

1 Morikofer (I. 430 sqq.) gives a disgusting example of the rudeness and
licentiousness of the Zurichers of that time.

2 He wrote to Myconius in 1522: "Statui proximis diebus in manus resumere
literas Hebraicas ; namfuturo Decembri . . . Psalrnos pndegam." Opera, VII. 145.

3 Christum ex fontibus prcedicare, purum Christum animis inserere. Comp. his
letter to Myconius (1520), Opera, VII. 142 sqq.

§ 11. ZWINGLl'S LABORS AND STUDIES. 41

This is a reformatory idea ; for the aim of the Reformation
was to reopen the fountain of the New Testament to the
whole people, and to renew the life of the Church by the
power of the primitive gospel. By his method of preaching
on entire books he could give his congregation a more com
plete idea of the life of Christ and the way of salvation than
by confining himself to detached sections. He did not at
first attack the Roman Church, but only the sins of the
human heart ; he refuted errors by the statement of truth.1

His sermons gained him great popularity in Zurich. The
people said, " Such preaching was never heard before." Two
prominent citizens, who were disgusted with the insipid
legendary discourses of priests and monks, declared after
hearing his first sermon, " This is a genuine preacher of the
truth, a Moses who will deliver the people from bondage."
They became his constant hearers and devoted friends.

Zwingli was also a devoted pastor, cheerful, kind, hospita
ble and benevolent. He took great interest in young men,
and helped them to an education. He was, as Bullinger
says, a fine-looking man, of more than middle size, with a
florid complexion, and an agreeable, melodious voice, which,
though not strong, went to the heart. We have no portrait
from his lifetime ; he had no Lucas Kranach near him, like
Luther ; all his pictures are copies of the large oil painting
of Hans Asper in the city library at Zurich, which was made
after his death, and is rather hard and wooden.2

Zwingli continued his studies in Zurich and enlarged his
library, with the help of his friends Glareanus and Beatus
Rhenanus, who sent him books from Basle, the Swiss head
quarters of literature. He did not neglect his favorite
classics, and read, as Bullinger says, Aristotle, Plato, Thu-

1 He did not elaborate his discourses on Matthew for publication, but we have
fragmentary reports from the year 1525. See the extracts in Morikofer, 1. 57-03.

2 See Asper's portrait on p. 16, and the description of the Zwingli pictures
in Morikofer, I. 345, and in the pamphlet, Zwingli-Ausstellung, Zurich, Janu
ary, 1884.

42 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

cydides, Homer, Horace, Sallust, and Seneca. But his chief
attention was now given to the Scriptures and the patristic
commentaries.

In the meantime Luther's reform was shaking the whole
Church, and strengthened and deepened his evangelical
convictions in a general way, although he had formed them
independently. Some of Luther's books were reprinted in
Basle in 1519, and sent to Zwingli by Rhenanus. Lutheran
ideas were in the air, and found attentive ears in Switzer
land. He could not escape their influence. The eucharistic
controversy produced an alienation ; but he never lost his
great respect for Luther and his extraordinary services to
the Church.1

§ 12. Zivingli and the Sale of Indulgences.

Bernhardin Samson, a Franciscan monk of Milan, crossed
the St. Gotthard to Switzerland in August, 1518, as apostolic
general commissioner for the sale of indulgences. He is the
Tetzel of Switzerland, and equalled him in the audacious
profanation of holy things by turning the forgiveness of sins
and the release from purgatorial punishment into merchan
dise. He gave the preference to the rich who were willing
to buy letters of indulgence on parchment for a crown. To
the poor he sold the same article on common paper for a few
coppers. In Berne he absolved the souls of all the departed
Bernese of the pains of purgatory. In Bremgarten he ex
communicated Dean Bullinger (the father of Henry) for
opposing his traffic. But in Zurich he was stopped in his
career.

Zwingli had long before been convinced of the error of in
dulgences by Wyttenbach when he studied in Basle. He had
warned the people against Samson at Einsiedeln. He exerted

1 In Zvvingli's library are few works of Luther, and they have no annota
tions. (Usteri, I.e., p. 716.) His noble tribute to Luther is quoted in this
History, vol. VI. 668.

§ 13. ZWINGLI DURING THE PESTILENCE. 43

his influence against him in Zurich ; and the magistracy, and
even the bishop of Constance (who preferred to sell indul
gences himself) supported the opposition. Samson was
obliged to return to Italy with his "heavy, three-horse
wagon of gold." Rome had learned a lesson of wisdom
from Luther's Theses, and behaved in the case of Samson
with more prudence and deference to the sentiment of the
enlightened class of Catholics. Leo X., in a brief of April,
1519, expressed his willingness to recall and to punish him
if he had transgressed his authority.1

The opposition to the sale of indulgences is the opening
chapter in the history of the German Reformation, but a
mere episode in the Swiss Reformation. That battle had
been fought out victoriously by Luther. Zwingli came in no
conflict with Rome on this question, and was even approved
for his conduct by Dr. Faber, the general vicar of the diocese
of Constance, who was then his friend, but became afterwards
his enemy.

§ 13. Zwingli during the Pestilence.

In the summer of 1519 Zwingli went to the famous bath
of PfafTers at Ragatz to gather strength for his prospectively
onerous duties at Zurich, in view of the danger of the ap
proach of the plague from Basle. As soon as he learned,
in August, that the plague had broken out in Zurich, he
hastened back without stopping to visit his relations on the
way. For several weeks he devoted himself, like a faithful
shepherd, day after day, to the care of the sick, until he fell
sick himself at the end of September. His life was in great
danger, as he had worn himself out. The papal legate sent
his own physician to his aid. The pestilence destroyed
twenty-five hundred lives ; that is, more than one-third of
the population of Zurich. Zwingli recovered, but felt the
effects on his brain and memory, and a lassitude in all his

1 Morikofer, I. Go sqq.

44 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

limbs till the end of the year. His friends at home and
abroad, including Faber, Pirkheimer, and Diirer at Niirnberg,
congratulated him on his recovery.

The experience during this season of public distress and
private affliction must have exerted a good influence upon
his spiritual life.1 We may gather this from the three poems,
which he composed and set to music soon afterwards, on his
sickness and recovery. They consist each of twenty-six
rhymed iambic verses, and betray great skill in versification.
They breathe a spirit of pious resignation to the will of God,
and give us an insight into his religious life at that time.2
He wrote another poem in 1529, and versified the Sixty-ninth
Psalm.3

ZWINGLI'S POEMS DURING THE PESTILENCE, WITH A FREE CONDENSED
TRANSLATION.

I. Im Anfang der Krankheit.

Hilf, Herr Gott, hilf Der mich verwundt,

In dieser Noth ; Nit lass ein Stund

Ich raein', dor Tod Mich haben weder Riivv7 noch Rast !

Syg4 an der Thiir. Willt du dann glych8

Stand, Christe, fur; Todt haben mich

Denn du ihn iiberwunden hast ! Inmitts der Tagen min,

Zu dir ich gilf : 5 So soil es willig syn.

1st es din Will, Thu, wie du willt,

Zuch us den Pfyl,6 Mich ntit befilt.9

1 Merle d'Aubigne overrates the influence of this sickness by dating from
it Zwingli's conversion and entire consecration to God. There was no sudden
change in his life, as in Paul or Luther : he developed gradually.

2 The original is given in Werke, II. 269-274, with a good modern repro
duction by Fulda; also by Morikofer, I. 72-74; and Hagenbach, 218 (oth ed.
byNippold). Abridged translations in the English editions of Merle d'Au
bigne' s History of the Reformation, Bk. VIII. ch. 8 (" Lo ! at my door gaunt
death I spy," etc.), and in Miss Moore's translation of Hagenbach's History of
the Reformation (Edinb., 1878, vol. I. 274). The structure of the poems is very
artificial and difficult to reproduce.

3 These poems passed into the oldest Zurich hymn and tune books of 1560
and 1570, and are printed together by Wackernagel, Das Deutsche Kirchenlied,
vol. III. 500-503.

4 Sei. 5 flehe, schreie. 6 Pfeil. 7 Huh. 8 doch. 9 fehlt.

13. ZWINGLI DURING THE PESTILENCE.

Din Haf 1 bin ich,
Mach ganz aid 2 brich.
Dann nimmst du bin
Den Geiste min

Von dieser Erd,

Thust du's, dass er nit boser werd,

Aid2 andern nit

Befleck ihr Leben fromm und Sitt.

II. Mitten in der Krankheit.

Trost, Herr Gott, trost !

Die Krankheit wachst,3

Weh und Angst fasst

Min Seel und Lyb.4

Darum dich schyb5

Gen mir, einiger Trost, mit Gnad !

Die gwiiss erlost

Ein jeden, der

Sin herzlich B'ger

Und Hoffnung setzt

In dich, verschatzt.

Darzu diss Zyt all Nutz und Schad.

Nun ist es um ;

Min Zung ist stumm,

Mag sprechen nit ein Wort;

Min Sinn' sind all verdorrt,

Darum ist Zyt,6

Dass du min Stryt 7

Fiihrist f urhin ;

So ich nit bin

So stark, dass ich

Mog tapferlich

Thun Widerstand

Des Tiifels Facht8 und frefner Hand.

Doch wird min Gmuth

Stat bliben dir, wie er auch wiith.

III. Zur Genesung.

G'sund, Herr Gott, g'sund !

Ich mein', ich kehr

Schon wiedrum her.

Ja, wenn dich dunkt,

Der Siinden Funk'

Werd nit mehr bherrschen mich uf

Erd,

So muss min Mund
Din Lob und Lehr
Ussprechen mehr
Denn vormals je,
Wie es auch geh'
Einfaltiglich ohn' alle G'fahrd.
Wiewohl ich muss

Des Todes buss

Erliden zwar einmal

Villicht mit gross'rer Qual,

Denn jezund war'

Geschehen, Herr!

So ich sunst bin

Nach9 gfahren hin,

So will ich doch

Den Trutz und Poch 10

In dieser Welt

Tragen frohlich um Widergelt,11

Mit Hiilfe din,

Ohn' den nut 12 mag vollkommen syn<

I. In the Beginning of his Sickness.

Help me, 0 Lord,

My strength and rock ;
Lo, at the door

I hear death's knock.

Uplift thine arm,

Once pierced for me,
That conquered death,

And set me free.

1 Gefass.

2 oder.

8 wachst.

4 Leib.

5 wende.

6 Zeit.

7 Streit.

8 Anfechtung.

9 beinahe.

10 Ungestiim.

11 Vergeltung.

12 nichts.

46 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

Yet, if thy voice, In faith and hope

In life's mid-day, . Earth I resign,

Recalls my soul, Secure of heaven,

Then I obey. For I am Thine.

II. In the Midst of his Sickness.

My pains increase ; Lo ! Satan strains
Haste to console; To snatch his prey;

For fear and woe I feel his grasp ;
Seize body and soul. Must I give way ?

Death is at hand, He harms me not,

My senses fail, I fear no loss,

My tongue is dumb; For here I lie

Now, Christ, prevail. Beneath Thy cross.

III. On recovering from his Sickness.

My God ! my Lord ! Though now delayed,

Healed by Thy hand, My hour will come,

Upon the earth Involved, perchance,

Once more I stand. In deeper gloom.

Let sin no more But, let it come;

Kule over me; With joy I'll rise,

My mouth shall sing And bear my yoke

Alone of Thee. Straight to the skies.

^ 14. The Open Breach. Controversy about Fasts. 1522.

Zwingii was permitted to labor in Zurich for two years
without serious opposition, although lie had not a few ene
mies, both religious and political. The magistracy of Zurich
took at first a neutral position, and ordered the priests of
the city and country to preach the Scriptures, and to be
silent about human inventions (1520). This is the first in
stance of an episcopal interference of the civil authority in
matters of religion. It afterwards became a settled custom
in Protestant Switzerland with the full consent of Zwingii.
He was appointed canon of the Grossmiinster, April 29,
1521, with an additional salary of seventy guilders, after
he had given up the papal pension. With this moderate
income he was contented for the rest of his life.

§ 14. THE OPEN BREACH. 47

During Lent, 1522, Zwingli preached a sermon in which
he showed that the prohibition of meat in Lent had no foun
dation in Scripture. Several of his friends, including his
publisher, Froschauer, made practical use of their liberty.

This brought on an open rupture. The bishop of Con
stance sent a strong deputation to Zurich, and urged the
observance of the customary fasts. The magistracy prohib
ited the violation, and threatened to punish the offenders
(April 9, 1522).1 Zwingli defended himself in a tract on
the free use of meats (April 16). 2 It is his first printed
book. He essentially takes the position of Paul, that, in
things indifferent, Christians have liberty to use or to abstain,
and that the Church authorities have no right to forbid this
liberty. He appeals to such passages as 1 Cor. 8:8; 10 : 25 ;
Col. 2:16; 1 Tim. 4:1; Rom. 14 : 1-3 ; 15 : 1, 2.

The bishop of Constance issued a mandate to the civil
authorities (May 24), exhorting them to protect the ordi
nances of the Holy Church.3 He admonished the canons,
without naming Zwingli, to prevent the spread of heretical
doctrines. He also sought and obtained the aid of the Swiss
Diet, then sitting at Lucerne.

Zwingli was in a dangerous position. He was repeatedly
threatened with assassination. But he kept his courage, and

1 Egli, Actensammlung, p. 77 (No. 237). Morikofer (I. 97) gives a wrong
date (March 19, 1521) ; but Egli's printer made an error in correcting him by
quoting vol. II. instead of I.

2 Von Erkiesen and Frylieit der Spysen (De delect u et Ubero ciborum usu^).
\Verke, I. B. 1-30; a Latin version by G\valter in Opera Lat. I. 324-339.

a Egli, p. 85 ; Strickler, I. 428. I give it here as a fair specimen of the
semi-barbarous German of Swiss documents of that period. "Dass unset
cdtterlicher getriiicer rat und fr'dntlich ernstlich pitt ist, ir wb'llen die drgenuss und
widerwiirtigkeit by iich selbs, den iiwern und andern f'drkommen und iich obgemeldten
der hailigen Jcirchen ordnungen und guotcn qewonhaiten in cristenlicher geainter
gehorsami verglychen, die vollziechen und solicits bij den iiwern zuo gesche(h}en,
aoi'il an iich, verschajfen. Das Imlten wir dem Evangelio, der leer Fault und dern
hailigen unserm cristenlichen glouben glychmassig. Ir tuond ouch daran iich und
den Iiwern ivolfart, von uns gnddigklick und fr'dntlich zuo erkennen und zuo
verdi< nen."

48 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

felt sure of ultimate victory. He replied in the Archeteles
("the Beginning and the End"), hoping that this first
answer would be the last.1 He protested that he had done
no wrong, but endeavored to lead men to God and to his
Son Jesus Christ in plain language, such as the common
people could understand. He warned the hierarchy of the
approaching collapse of the Romish ceremonies, and advised
them to follow the example of Julius Caesar, who folded his
garments around him that Jie might fall with dignity. The
significance of this book consists in the strong statement of
the authority of the Scriptures against the authority of the
Church. Erasmus was much displeased with it.

§ 15. Petition for the Abolition of Clerical Celibacy.
Zwinglis Marriage.

In July of the same year (1522), Zwingli, with ten other
priests, sent a Latin petition to the bishop, and a German
petition to the Swiss Diet, to permit the free preaching of
the gospel and the marriage of the clergy as the only remedy
against the evils of enforced celibacy. He quotes the Scrip
tures for the divine institution and right of marriage, and
begs the confederates to permit what God himself has sanc
tioned. He sent both petitions to Myconius in Lucerne for
signatures. Some priests approved, but were afraid to sign ;
others said the petition was useless, and could only be
granted by the pope or a council.2

The petition was not granted. Several priests openly dis
obeyed. One married even a nun of the convent of Oeten-
bach (1523); Reubli of Wyticon married, April 28, 1523;
Leo Juda3, Sept. 19, 1523.

Zwingli himself entered into the marriage relation in 1522,3

1 Opera, III. 26-76.

2 Werke, I. A. 30-51 ; III. 16-25.

3 See the letters of Myconius from 1522, where he sends salutations to
Zwingli's wife, quoted in § 7, p. 28.

§ 15 PETITION FOR THE ABOLITION OF CELIBACY. 49

but from prudential reasons he did not make it public till
April 5, 1524 (more than a year before Luther's marriage,
which took place June 13, 1525). Such cases of secret
marriage were not unfrequent ; but it would have been
better for his fame if, as a minister and reformer, he had
exercised self-restraint till public opinion was ripe for the
change.

His wife, Anna Reinhart,1 was the widow of Hans Meyer
von Knonau,2 the mother of three children, and lived near
Zwingli. She was tw^o years older than he. His enemies
spread the report that he married for beauty and wealth ;
but she possessed only four hundred guilders besides her
wardrobe and jewelry. She ceased to wear her jewelry after
marrying the Reformer.

We have only one letter of Zwingli to his wife, written
from Berne, Jan. 11, 1528, in which he addresses her as his
dearest house-wife.3 From occasional expressions of respect
and affection for his wife, and from salutations of friends to
her, we must infer that his family life was happy; but it
lacked the poetic charm of Luther's home. She was a useful
helpmate in his work.4 She contributed her share towards

1 His letter to her bears the inscription, "Der Frauen Anna Beinhartin in
Zurich, seiner lieben Hausfrau." Opera, VIII. 134. Others spell the name
Reinhard.

- A soldier of wild habits, who belonged to one of the oldest and richest
families of Zurich, and died 1517.

3 It is as follows (VIII. 134): "Gnad und Fried von Gott. Liebste Haus
frau, ich sage Gott Dank, dass er dir eine fruhliche Geburt verliehen hat; der wolle
uns die nach seinern Willen zu erziehen verleihen. Schicke meiner Base ein oder
zwei Tilchli \_Tiichlein'], soldier Mass und Weise, als du sie trdgst. Sie kommt
ziemlich [sittsam"], doch nicht beginlich [i.e., wie eine Nonne, eine Beghine~\, ist eine
Frau von 40 Jahren in alle Weis und Mass, wie sie Meister JiJrgen Frau beschrieben
hat. Thut mir und »ms Allen ilber die Mass giitlich. Bis [$e«] hiemit Gott befohlen.
Grusse mir Gevatter Schaffherin, Ulmann Trinkler', Schnlthess Effingerin und wer
dir lieb sei. Bitt Gott fur mich und uns Alle. Gegeben zu Bern 11. Tag Jdnners.
Grusse mir alle deine Kinder. Besonders Margreth troste in meinem Namen.
Huldreich Zwingli, dein Hauswirth."

4 One of his friends calls her "eine Mitarbeiterin am Wort, welche dir, den
Apostel, behvlflirh ist." Finsler, U. Zwingli, p. 52 sq.

50 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

the creation of pastoral family life, with its innumerable
happy homes.1

In Zwingli's beautiful copy of the Greek Bible (from the
press of Aldus in Venice, 1518), which is still preserved
and called " Zwingli's Bible," he entered with his own hand
a domestic chronicle, which records the names, birthdays,
and sponsors of his four children, as follows : " Regula
Zwingli, born July 13, 1524 ; 2 Wilhelm Zwingli, born Janu
ary 29, 1526 ; 3 Huldreich Zwingli, born Jan. 6, 1528 ; 4 Anna
Zwingli, born May 4, 1530. "5 His last male descendant was
his grandson, Ulrich, professor of theology, born 1556, died
1601. The last female descendant was his great-grand
daughter, Anna Zwingli, who presented his MS. copy of
the Greek Epistles of Paul to the city library of Zurich
in 1634.

Zwingli lived in great simplicity, and left no property.
His little study (the " Zwingli-Stiibli "), in the official dwell
ing of the deacon of the Great Minster, is carefully preserved
in its original condition.

§ 16. Zwingli and Lambert of Avignon.

In July, 1522, there appeared in Zurich a Franciscan
monk, Lambert of Avignon, in his monastic dress, riding on
a donkey. He had left his convent in the south of France,
and was in search of evangelical religion. Haller of Berne
recommended him to Zwingli. Lambert preached some Latin
sermons against the abuses of the Roman Church, but still
advocated the worship of saints and of the Virgin Mary.

1 Comp. vol. VI. § 79, p. 473 sqq.

2 She married Rudolf Gwalter, Bullinger's adopted son and successor, and
first editor of Zwingli's collected works.

3 He studied at Strassburg with Capito, and died with him of the pesti
lence, 1541.

4 He became pastor of the Prediger-Kirche, and married Bullinger's oldest
daughter, Anna.

5 Anna died very young, and her death is recorded in the same book.

§ 17. THE SIXTY-SEVEN CONCLUSIONS. 51

Zwingli interrupted him with the remark, " You err," and
convinced him of his error in a disputation.

The Franciscan thanked God and proceeded to Witten
berg, where Luther received him kindly. At the Synod of
Homberg (1526) he advocated a scheme of Presbyterian
church government, and at the conference at Marburg he
professed to be converted to Zwingli's view of the Lord's
Supper.1

§ 17. The Sixty-seven Conclusions.

On the Sixty-seven Conclusions and the Three Disputations see ZWINGLI :
Werke, I. A. 105 sqq. ; BULLINGKR : I. 97 sqq. ; EGLI : 111, 114, 173 sqq. ;
MORIKOFER : I. 138 sqq., 191 sqq. The text of the Sixty-seven Articles
in Swiss-German, Werke, I. A. 153-157 ; in modern German and Latin, in
SCHAFF : Creeds of Christendom, III. 197-207.

ZwinglTs views, in connection with the Lutheran Refor
mation in Germany, created a great commotion, not only in
the city and canton of Zurich, but in all Switzerland. At
his suggestion, the government — that is, the burgomaster
and the small and large Council (called The Two Hundred)
— ordered a public disputation which should settle the con
troversy on the sole basis of the Scriptures.

For this purpose Zwingli published Sixty-seven Articles
or Conclusions (^ScJilussreden). They are the first public
statement of the Reformed faith, but they never attained
symbolical authority, and were superseded by maturer con
fessions. They resemble the Ninety-five Theses of Luther
against indulgences, which six years before had opened the
drama of the German Reformation ; but they mark a great
advance in Protestant sentiment, and cover a larger number
of topics. They are full of Christ as the only Saviour and
Mediator, and clearly teach the supremacy of the Word of
God as the only rule of faith; they reject and attack the
primacy of the Pope, the Mass, the invocation of saints,

1 See vol. VI. 582 sqq., 586 sq., 649. Comp. Bullinger, I. 76 sqq. ; Haller's
letter to Zwingli, July 8, 1522 (Opera, VII. 206 sq.).

52 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

the meritoriousness of human works, the fasts, pilgrimages,
celibacy, purgatory, etc., as unscriptural commandments of
men.

The following are the most important of these theses : —

1. All who say that the gospel is nothing without the approbation of the
Church, err and cast reproach upon God.

2. The sum of the gospel is that our Lord Jesus Christ, the true Son of
God, has made known to us the will of his heavenly Father, and redeemed us
by his innocence from eternal death, and reconciled us to God.

3. Therefore Christ is the only way to salvation to all who were, who are,
who shall be.

4. "Whosoever seeks or shows another door, errs — yea, is a murderer of
souls and a robber.

7. Christ is the head of all believers who are his body; but without him
the body is dead.

8. All who live in this Head are his members and children of God. And
this is the Church, the communion of saints, the bride of Christ, the Ecclesia
catholica.

15. Who believes the gospel shall be saved ; who believes not, shall be
damned. For in the gospel the whole truth is clearly contained.

16. From the gospel we learn that the doctrines and traditions of men are
of no use to salvation.

17. Christ is the one eternal high-priest. Those who pretend to be high-
priests resist, yea, set aside, the honor and dignity of Christ.

18. Christ, who offered himself once on the cross, is the sufficient and per
petual sacrifice for the sins of all believers. Therefore the mass is no sacri
fice, but a commemoration of the one sacrifice of the cross, and a seal of the
redemption through Christ.

19. Christ is the only Mediator between God and us.

22. Christ is our righteousness. From this it follows that our works are
good so far as they are Christ's, but not good so far as they are our own.

24. Christians are not bound to any works which Christ has not com
manded. They may eat at all times all kinds of food.

26. Nothing is more displeasing to God than hypocrisy.

27. All Christians are brethren.

28. Whatsoever God permits and has not forbidden, is right. Therefore
marriage is becoming to all men.

34. The spiritual [hierarchical] power, so called, has no foundation in the
Holy Scriptures and the teaching of Christ.1

35. But the secular power [of the state] is confirmed by the teaching and
example of Christ.2

1 Zwingli means the worldly power and splendor of the pope and the bishops, and
quotes against it the lessons of humility, Matt. 18: 1; 1 Pet. 5:1-3: " Die Hohe nach der
die pdpst und bisliof strytend, hat keinen Grund." See his Uslegung or defence of the
Articles, Werke, I. 346 sq.

2 For this he quotes Luke 2 : 5 and Matt. 22 : 21.

§ 18. THE PUBLIC DISPUTATIONS. 53

37, 38. All Christians owe obedience to the magistracy, provided it does
not command what is against God.1

49. I know of no greater scandal than the prohibition of lawful marriage
to priests, while they are permitted for money to have concubines. Shame!'2

50. God alone forgives sins, through Jesus Christ our Lord alone.

57. The Holy Scripture knows nothing of a purgatory after this life.

58, 59. God alone knows the condition of the departed, and the less he has
made known to us, the less we should pretend to know.

66. All spiritual superiors should repent without delay, and set up the
cross of Christ alone, or they will perish. The axe is laid at the root.

§ 18. The Public Disputations. 1523.

The first disputation was held in the city hall on Thurs
day, Jan. 29, 1523, in the German language, before about
six hundred persons, including all the clergy and members
of the small and large councils of Zurich. St. Gall was
represented by Vadian ; Berne, by Sebastian Meyer ; Schaff-
hausen, by Sebastian Hofmeister. (Ecolampadius from Basle
expected no good from disputations, and declined to come.
He agreed with Melanchthon's opinion about the Leipzig
disputation of Eck with Carls tadt and Luther. Neverthe
less, he attended, three years afterwards, the Disputation at
Baden. The bishop of Constance sent his general vicar, Dr.
Faber, hitherto a friend of Zwingli, and a man of respect
able learning and an able debater, with three others as coun
sellors and judges. Faber declined to enter into a detailed
discussion of theological questions which, he thought, belong
to the tribunal of councils or of renowned universities, as

1 In the Uslegung (I. 352 sq.) he explains Rom. 13:1 : "Let every soul be subject unto
the higher powers." " Every soul," he says, " means every living man, and includes popes,
bishops, priests, monks and nuns. Every power is from God; consequently, also, a bad
magistracy, with which God punishes our sins (Isa. 3: 4). Then we must also obey the pope,
even a bad one, because he is set over us by God for punishment. This I believe firmly, but
I believe also that God will lead us out of this captivity, as lie led Israel out of Egypt through
his servant Moses."

2 " Pfui der Schande," is added in the German text. In the Swiss dialect, " Pfuch der
Schand ! " (I. A. 156). In the defence of this article (I. 378 sq.), Zwingli strongly illustrates
the evil effects of the lewd life of the unmarried clergy upon the morals of the laity. "It
is easy," he says, "to command chastity; but no one is able to keep it without the grace of
God." Concerning his own case, see § 7, p. 27.

54 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

Paris, Cologne and Louvain. Zwingli answered his objec
tions, and convinced the audience.1

On the same day the magistracy passed judgment in favor
of Zwingli, and directed him " to continue to preach the
holy gospel as heretofore, and to proclaim the true, divine
Scriptures until he was better informed." All other preach
ers and pastors in the city and country were warned " not to
preach anything which they could not establish by the holy
Gospel and other divine Scriptures," and to avoid personal
controversy and bitter names.2

Zwingli prepared a lengthy and able defence of his Arti
cles against the charges of Faber, July, 1523.3

The disputation soon produced its natural effects. Minis
ters took regular wives ; the nunnery of Oetenbach was
emptied; baptism was administered in the vernacular, and
without exorcism; the mass and worship of images were
neglected and despised. A band of citizens, under the lead
of a shoemaker, Klaus Hottinger, overthrew the great wooden
crucifix in Stadelhofen, near the city, and committed other
lawless acts.4

Zwingli was radical in his opposition to idolatrous and
superstitious ceremonies, but disapproved disorderly meth
ods, and wished the magistracy to authorize the necessary
changes.

Consequently, a second disputation was arranged for Octo
ber 26, 1523, to settle the question of images and of the

1 An unofficial report of the disputation was published by Hegenwald,
March 3, 1523 (Werke, I. A. 105-168). Faber issued, March 10, a counter-
report. Seven Zurichers replied to him in "Das Gyrenrupfen" (Get/errupfen^),
1523, and charged him with lying and claiming the speeches of others.
Salat's Historische Nachricht of the deputation is a " parteiische Verstummelung
und Entstellung" of Hegemvald's report, and hence of no historical value
(Schuler and Schulthess, in their ed. of Zw. I. 109). Comp. Aug. Baur, Die
trste Ziircher Disputation, Halle, 1883.

2 Egli, 114 sq.; Bullinger, I. 103.

3 Werke, I. A. 160-425.

4 Fiissli, II. 33-39 ; Egli, 176, 178.

§ 18. THE PUBLIC DISPUTATIONS. 55

mass. All the ministers of the city and canton were ordered
to attend; the twelve other cantons, the bishops of Con
stance, Coire and Basle, and the University of Basle were
urgently requested to send learned delegates. The bishop
of Constance replied (Oct. 16) that he must obey the Pope
and the Emperor, and advised the magistracy to wait for a
general council. The bishop of Basle excused himself on
account of age and sickness, but likewise referred to a
council and warned against separation. The bishop of Coire
made no answer. Most of the cantons declined to send
delegates, except Schaffhausen and St. Gall. Unterwalden
honestly replied that they had no learned men among them,
but pious priests who faithfully adhered to the old faith of
Christendom, which they preferred to all innovations.

The second disputation was held in the city hall, and
lasted three days. There were present about nine hundred
persons, including three hundred and fifty clergymen and ten
doctors. Dr. Vadian of St. Gall, Dr. Hofmeister of Schaff
hausen, and Dr. Schappeler of St. Gall presided. Zwingli
and Leo Juclse defended the Protestant cause, and had the
advantage of superior Scripture learning and argument.
The Roman party betrayed much ignorance ; but Martin
Steinli of Schaffhausen ably advocated the mass. Konrad
Schmid of Kiissnacht took a moderate position, and pro
duced great effect upon the audience by his eloquence. His
judgment was, first to take the idolatry out of the heart
before abolishing the outward images, and to leave the staff
to the weak until they are able to walk without it and to
rely solely on Christ.1

1 The only German report of the second disputation, in Werke, I. A. 459-
540 (comp. Bullinger, I. 131 sqq.), is from the pen of Ludwig Hetzer, chaplain
at Wadenschweil, then priest at Zurich, an ardent friend of the Reformation,
who afterwards joined the Anabaptists, and was beheaded at Constance.
Gwalter made an abridged Latin translation in Zw. Opera, II. 623-646. Zwingli
took the ground that a truly Christian congregation was a better church than
all the bishops and popes, and had as good a right to settle religious contro-

56 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

The Council was not prepared to order the immediate
abolition of the mass and the images. It punished Hottin-
ger and other " idol-stormers " by banishment, and appointed
a commission of ministers and laymen, including Zwingli,
Schmidt and Judae, who should enlighten the people on the
subject by preaching and writing. Zwingli prepared his
" Short and Christian Introduction," which was sent by the
Council of Two Hundred to all the ministers of the canton,
the bishops of Constance, Basle, and Coire, the University of
Basle, and to the twelve other cantons (Nov. 17, 1523).1 It
may be compared to the instruction of Melanchthon for the
visitation of the churches of Saxony (1528).

A third disputation, of a more private character, was held
Jan. 20, 1524. The advocates of the mass were refuted and
ordered not to resist any longer the decisions of the magis
tracy, though they might adhere to their faith.

During the last disputation, Zwingli preached a sermon
on the corrupt state of the clergy, which he published by
request in March, 1524, under the title "The Shepherd."2
He represents Christ as the good Shepherd in contrast with
the selfish hirelings, according to the parable in the tenth
chapter of the Gospel of John. Among the false shepherds
he counts the bishops who do not preach at all ; those priests
who teach their own dreams instead of the Word of God ;
those who preach the Word but for the glorification of
popery ; those who deny their preaching by their conduct ;
those who preach for filthy lucre ; and, finally, all who mis
lead men away from the Creator to the creature. Zwingli

versies as a council, where the Word of God was not allowed to decide. "Ja,
Hongy nnd Kiissnacht ist ein geiviissere Kilch denn all ziisamnien yerottet bishqf nnd
plipst." Werke, I. 472.

1 Ein kitrz christenliche ynleitung, die ein eersamer rat der statt Zurich den sa'lsor-
gern und prddicanlen . . . zugesandt habend, etc. Werke, I. A. 541-5G5. Gwalter
gives a Latin version, Op. I. 264-268.

- Der Hirt, wie man die war en christenlichen hirten nnd iciderum die falschen
erkennen . . . siille. Werke, I. A. 631-668.

§ 18. THE PUBLIC DISPUTATIONS. 57

treats the papists as refined idolaters, and repeatedly de
nounces idolatry as the root of the errors and abuses of the
Church.

During the summer of 1524 the answers of the bishops
and the Diet appeared, both in opposition to any innovations.
The bishop of Constance, in a letter to Zurich, said that he
had consulted several universities ; that the mass and the
images were sufficiently warranted by the Scriptures, and had
always been in use. The canton appointed a commission of
clergymen and laymen to answer the episcopal document.1
The Swiss Diet, by a deputation, March 21, 1524, expressed
regret that Zurich sympathized with the new, unchristian
Lutheran religion, and prayed the canton to remain faithful
to old treaties and customs, in which case the confederates
would cheerfully aid in rooting out real abuses, such as the
shameful trade in benefices, the selling of indulgences, and
the scandalous lives of the clergy.

Thus forsaken by the highest ecclesiastical and civil au
thorities, the canton of Zurich acted on its own responsi
bility, and carried out the contemplated reforms.

The three disputations mark an advance beyond the usual
academic disputations in the Latin language. They were held
before laymen as well as clergymen, and in the vernacular.
They brought religious questions before the tribunal of the
people according to the genius of republican institutions.
They had, therefore, more practical effect than the disputa
tion at Leipzig. The German Reformation was decided by
the will of the princes ; the Swiss Reformation, by the will
of the people : but in both cases there was a sympathy
between the rulers and the majority of the population.

1 The answer was written by Zwingli, and printed Aug. 18, 1524. Werke,
I. A. 584-030.

58 THE SWISS KEFORMATION.

§ 19. The Abolition of the Roman Worship. 1524.

BULLINGER, I. 173 sqq. FUSSLI, I. 142 sqq. EGLI, 234 sqq.

By these preparatory measures, public opinion was pre
pared for the practical application of the new ideas. The
old order of worship had to be abolished before the new
order could be introduced. The destruction was radical, but
orderly. It was effected by the co-operation of the preachers
and the civil magistracy, with the consent of the people. It
began at Pentecost, and was completed June 20, 1524.

In the presence of a deputation from the authorities of
Church and State, accompanied by architects, masons and
carpenters, the churches of the city were purged of pictures,
relics, crucifixes, altars, candles, and all ornaments, the fres
coes effaced, and the walls whitewashed, so that nothing
remained but the bare building to be filled by a worshiping
congregation. The pictures were broken and burnt, some
given to those who had a claim, a few preserved as antiqui
ties. The bones of the saints were buried. Even the organs
were removed, and the Latin singing of the choir abolished,
but fortunately afterwards replaced by congregational sing
ing of psalms and hymns in ' the vernacular (in Basle as
early as 1526, in St. Gall 1527, in Zurich in 1598). "Within
thirteen days," says Bullinger, " all the churches of the city
were cleared ; costly works of painting and sculpture, espe
cially a beautiful table in the Waterchurch, were destroyed.
The superstitious lamented ; but the true believers rejoiced
in it as a great and joyous worship of God." l

In the following year the magistracy melted, sold, or gave
away the rich treasures of the Great Minster and the Frauen-
minster, — chalices, crucifixes, and crosses of gold and silver,

1 1. 175. Bullinger justifies the abolition of church music (which took place
in the Grossmiinster, Dec. 9, 1527) with St. Paul's objection to the unintelli
gible glossolalia without interpretation (1 Cor. 14:6-9). He must, of course,
mean the chanting of a choir in Latin. The Swiss Reformed churches excel
in congregational singing.

§ 19. THE ABOLITION OF THE ROMAN WORSHIP. 59

precious relics, clerical robes, tapestry, and other ornaments.1
In 1533 not a copper's worth was left in the sacristy of the
Great Minster.2 Zwingli justified this vandalism by the
practice of a conquering army to spike the guns and to
destroy the forts and provisions of the enemy, lest he might
be tempted to return.

The same work of destruction took place in the village
churches in a less orderly way. Nothing was left but the
bare buildings, empty, cold and forbidding.

The Swiss Reformers proceeded on a strict construction of
the second commandment as understood by Jews and Mos
lems. They regarded all kinds of worship paid to images
and relics as a species of idolatry. They opposed chiefly the
paganism of popery ; while Luther attacked its legalistic
Judaism, and allowed the pictures to remain as works of art
and helps to devotion. For the classical literature of Greece
and Rome, however, Zwingli had more respect than Luther.
It should be remarked also that he was not opposed to
images as such any more than to poetry and music, but only
to their idolatrous use in churches. In his reply to Valentin
Compar of Uri (1525), he says, " The controversy is not
about images which do not offend the faith and the honor of
God, but about idols to which divine honors are paid. Where
there is no danger of idolatry, the images may remain ; but
idols should not be tolerated. All the papists tell us that
images are the books for the unlearned. But where has God
commanded us to learn from such books ? " He thought
that the absence of images in churches would tend to in
crease the hunger for the Word of God.3

1 Egli, p. 269 (No. 614, Jan. 9, 1525) ; Morikofer, I. 315 sq. Janssen (III.
84 sq.) dwells with circumstantial minuteness on the confiscation and robbery
of these church treasures, some of which dated from the time of Charlemagne.

2 Egli, p. 893 (No. 2004, c. 1533). Uetinger declared that between 1524
and 1532 all the treasury of the sacristy was squandered, and nobody knew
what had become of it. " Prorsus nihil siifwerat."

3 Werke, II. A. 17-59. Comp. Morikofer, I. 2G9-274.

60 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

The Swiss iconoclasm passed into the Reformed Churches
of France, Holland, Scotland, and North America. In recent
times a reaction has taken place, not in favor of image wor
ship, which is dead and gone, but in favor of Christian art ;
and more respect is paid to the decency and beauty of the
house of God and the comfort of worshipers.

§ 20. The Reformed Celebration of the Lord's Supper.
ZWIXGLI, Werke, II. B. 233. BULLINGER, I. 263. FUSSLI, IV. 64.

The mass was gone. The preaching of the gospel and
the celebration of the Lord's Supper by the whole congrega
tion, in connection with a kind of Agape, took its place.

The first celebration of the communion after the Reformed
usage was held in the Holy Week of April, 1525, in the
Great Minster. There were three services, — first for the
youth on Maundy-Thursday, then for the middle-aged on
Good Friday, and last for the old people on Easter. The
celebration was plain, sober, solemn. The communicants
were seated around long tables, which took the place of the
altar, the men on the right, the women on the left. They
listened reverently to the prayers, the words of institution,
the Scripture lessons, taken from the eleventh chapter of the
first Corinthians and the mysterious discourse in the sixth
chapter of John on the spiritual eating and drinking of
Christ's flesh and blood, and to an earnest exhortation of
the minister. They then received in a kneeling posture the
sacred emblems in w^ooden plates and wooden cups. The
whole service was a commemoration of Christ's atoning death

and a spiritual communion with him, according to the theory
of Zwingli.

In the liturgical part he retained more from the Catholic
service than we might expect; namely, the Introit, the Gloria
in Excelsis, the Creed, and several responses ; but all were
translated from Latin into the Swiss dialect, and with curious

§ 20. CELEBRATION OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 61

modifications. Thus the Gloria in Excelsis, the Creed, and
the One Hundred and Third Psalm were said alternately by
the men and the women, instead of the minister and the
deacon, as in the Catholic service, or the minister and the
congregation, as in the Lutheran and Episcopal services.1
In most of the Reformed churches (except the Anglican)
the responses passed out of use, and the kneeling posture
in receiving the communion gave way to the standing or
sitting posture.

The communion service was to be held four times in the
year, — at Easter, Whitsunday, autumn, and Christmas. It
was preceded by preparatory devotions, and made a season
of special solemnity. The mass was prohibited at first only
in the city, afterwards also in the country.

Zwingli furnished also in 1525 an abridged baptismal ser
vice in the vernacular language, omitting the formula of
exorcism and all those elements for which he found no
Scripture warrant.2

The Zwinglian and Calvinistic worship depends for its
effect too much upon the intellectual and spiritual power of
the minister, who can make it either very solemn and impres
sive, or very cold and barren. The Anglican Church has
the advantage of an admirable liturgy.

1 Werke, II. B. 237 sqq. I give a specimen from the Gloria in Excelsis: —

DER PFARRER : Eer sye gott in den hohinnen !

DIE MANN : Und frid uf erden !

DIE WYBER: Den menschen ein recht gmiit !

DIE MANN • Wir lobend dich, wir prysend dich.

DIE WYBER : Wir betend dich an, wir verehrend dich, etc.

Shorter responses, however, occur between the minister or deacon and the
congregation.

2 The first German baptismal service by Zwingli and Leo Judae appeared
in the summer of 1523, the second in May, 1525. Werke, II. B. 224 sqq.;
230 sq.

62 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

§ 21. Other Changes. A Theological School. The Caro-
linum. A System of Theology.

Other changes completed the Reformation. The Corpus
Christ! festival was abolished, and the Christian year reduced
to the observance of Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and
Pentecost. Processions and pilgrimages ceased. The prop
erty of convents was confiscated and devoted to schools and
hospitals. The matrimonial legislation was reconstructed,
and the care of the poor organized. In 1528 a synod
assembled for the first time, to which each congregation
sent its minister and two lay delegates.

A theological college, called Carolinum, was established
from the funds of the Great Minster, and opened June 19,
1525. It consisted of the collegium humanitatis, for the
study of the ancient languages, philosophy and mathematics,
and the Carolinum proper, for the study of the Holy Scrip
tures, -which were explained in daily lectures, and popular
ized by the pastors for the benefit of the congregation. This
was called prophesying (1 Cor. 14 : 1).1 Zwingli wrote a
tract on Christian education (1526). 2 He organized this
school of the prophets, and explained in it several books
of the Old Testament, according to the Septuagint. He
recommended eminent scholars to professorships. Among
the earliest teachers were Ceporin, Pellican, Myconius, Collin,
Megancler, and Bibliander. To Zwingli Zurich owes its the
ological and literary reputation. The Carolinum secured an
educated ministry, and occupied an influential position in
the development of theological science and literature till the

1 Comp. Pestalozzi, Leo Judc?, p. 76, and Glider on " Prophezei," in Herzog2,
XII. 288.

2 Republished by Emil Egli, U. Zwingli's Lehmbchlein, oder wie man die
Jugend in guten Sitten und christlicher Zucht auferziehen und lehren solle. Zurich,
1884. With an appendix of documents relating to the school at Zurich in
Zwingli's time.

ZURICH IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY,

L EL O IllD^VE-THEOLOGU5 ,

one,

NON PO^TRBMUiJ ANN05KIX.ET
u? Tefftiwnlilibros Hebra,icos, Jiwtpttct ef para c£ictt
Hekr<2ot-Utti lingua, in Latinamd Germanic Attt
l, jidz el

i tarn J^nex ,moU gm,n<ks fiu^as op eH^
M D. XLII. A.Uti^ Lx..

§ 22. THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. 63

nineteenth century, when it was superseded by the organiza
tion of a full university.1

Zwingli wrote in the course of three months and a half an
important work on the true, evangelical, as opposed to the
false, popish faith, and dedicated it to Francis I., king of
France, in the vain hope of gaining him to the cause of the
Reformation.2 It completes his theological opposition to
the papacy. It is the first systematic exposition of the Re
formed faith, as Melanchthon's Loci was the first system of
Lutheran theology ; but it was afterwards eclipsed by Cal
vin's Institutes, which were addressed to the same king with
no better effect. Francis probably never read either; but
the dedication remains as a connecting link between the
Swiss and the French Reformation. The latter is a child of
the former.

§ 22. The Translation of the Bible. Leo Judce.

METZGER (Antistes in Schaffhausen) : Geschichte der deutschen Bibeliibersetzung
der schweizerischen reformirten Kirche. Basel, 1876. PESTALOZZI : Leo
Judce. Elberfeld, 1860.

A most important part of the Reformation was a vernacu
lar translation of the Bible. Luther's New Testament (1522)
was reprinted at Basel with a glossary. In Zurich it was
adapted to the Swiss dialect in 1524, and revised and im
proved in subsequent editions. The whole Bible was pub
lished in German by Froschauer at Zurich in 1530, four

1 Prof. Dr. Georg von Wyss, in his festive discourse on the University of
Zurich (Die Hochschule Zurich in d. Jahren 1833-1883, Zurich, 1883), gives
a brief sketch of the development of the Carolinum. The first theological
faculty of the university consisted of three Zurichers, Hirzel, Schulthess and
Salomon Hess, who had been professors of the Carolinum, and two Germans,
Rettig and Hitzig. Besides there were five Privatdocenten, ministers of
Zurich. See also Prof. Steiner's Festrede zur 50 jahriyen Stiftungsfeier der
Ziiricher Universitat, 1883.

2 Commentarius de vera et falsa religione, March, 1525. Opera, III. 145—325
Leo Judas published a German translation, 1526. When Erasmus received
the book, he said, "0 bone Zwingli, quid scribis, quod'ipse prius non scripserim ? "
So Zwingli reports in a letter to Vadian, Opera, VII. 399.

64 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

years before Luther completed his version (1534). l The
translation of the Prophets and the Apocrypha was prepared
by Conrad Pellican, Leo Judse, Theodor Bibliander, and other
Zurich divines. The beautiful edition of 1531 contained also
a new version of the Poetical books, with an introduction
(probably by Zwingli), summaries, and parallel passages.

The Swiss translation cannot compare with Luther's in
force, beauty, and popularity ; but it is more literal, and
in subsequent revisions it has kept pace with the progress of
exegesis. It brought the Word of God nearer to the heart
and mind of the Swiss people, and is in use to this day
alongside of the Lutheran version.2

The chief merit in this important service belongs to Leo
Jud or Judte.3 He was born in 1482, the son of a priest in
Alsass, studied with Zwingli at Basle, and became his suc
cessor as priest at Einsiedeln, 1519, and his colleague and
faithful assistant as minister of St. Peter's in Zurich since
1523. He married in the first year of his pastorate at
Zurich. His relation to Zwingli has been compared with
the relation of Melanchthon to Luther. He aided Zwingli
in the second disputation, in the controversy with the Ana
baptists, and with Luther, edited and translated several of
his writings, and taught Hebrew in the Carolinum. Zwingli
called him his " dear brother and faithful co-worker in the
gospel of Jesus Christ." He was called to succeed the
Reformer after the catastrophe of Cappel ; but he declined
on account of his unfitness for administrative work, and

1 Five complete editions of the Bible were printed in Zurich before 1534.
Pestalozzi, Leo Judce, p. 77.

2 On the different editions see Metzger, I.e. 109 sqq., and Fritzsche, in
Herzog2, XII. 555 sq. The versicular division was first introduced in the
edition of 1589. The first thorough revision was prepared by Antistes Brei-
tinger, 1629. Other revisions followed in 1665, 1724, 1755, 1772, 1817, 1860,
and 1868. The last is pronounced by Fritzsche one of the best translations,
based upon a conscientious use of the latest exegetical labors.

3 He avoided his family name Jud (Jew) ; and the Zurichers called him
"Master Leu" (Leo). In all his Latin writings he uses the Latin form.

§ 23. CHUIICH AND STATE. 65

recommended Bullinger, who was twenty years younger.
He continued to preach and to teach till his death, and
declined several calls to Wurtemberg and Basle. He advo
cated strict discipline and a separation of religion from
politics. He had a melodious voice, and was a singer,
musician, and poet, but excelled chiefly as a translator into
German and Latin.1 He wrote a Latin and two German
catechisms, and translated Thomas a Kempis' Imitatio Christi,
Augustin's De Spiritu et Litera, the first Helvetic Confession,
and other useful books into German, besides portions of the
Bible. He prepared also a much esteemed Latin version of
the Old Testament, which is considered his best work. He
often consulted in it his colleagues and Michael Adam, a
converted Jew. He did not live to see the completion, and
left this to Bibliander and Pellican. It appeared in a hand
some folio edition, 1543, with a preface by Pellican, and was
several times reprinted.2 He lived on a miserable salary
with a large family, and yet helped to support the poor and
entertained strangers, aided by his industrious and pious
wife, known in Zurich as "Mutter Leuin." Four days
before his death, June 19, 1542, he summoned his colleagues
to his chamber, spoke of his career with great humility and
gratitude to God, and recommended to them the care of the
church and the completion of his Latin Bible. His death
was lamented as a great loss by Bullinger and Calvin and
the people of Zurich.8

§ 23. Church and State.

The Reformation of Zurich was substantially completed
in 1525. It was brought about by the co-operation of the

1 Pellican says of him, "Utilissima transtulit admodum feliciter."

- On his Latin Bible see Pestalozzi, 76 sqq., 165, and Fritzsche in Herzog2

VIII. 463.

3 On his works see Pestalozzi, pp. 96-106. His hymns and versified Psalms

are printed in Wackernagel, Das Deutsche Kirchenlied, vol. III. p. 722 sqq.

(Xos. 832-837).

bb THE SWISS REFORMATION.

secular and spiritual powers. Zwingli aimed at a reforma
tion of the whole religious, political, and social life of the
people, on the basis and by the power of the Scriptures.1

The patriot, the good citizen, and the Christian were to
him one and the same. He occupied the theocratic stand
point of the Old Testament. The preacher is a prophet :
his duty is to instruct, to exhort, to comfort, to rebuke sin
in high and low places, and to build up the kingdom of God ;
his weapon is the Word of God. The duty of the magistracy
is to obey the gospel, to protect religion, to punish wicked
ness. Calvin took the same position in Geneva, and carried
it out much more fully than Zwingli.

The bishop of Constance, to whose diocese Zurich be
longed, opposed the Reformation ; and so did the other
bishops of Switzerland. Hence the civil magistracy assumed
the episcopal rights and jurisdiction, under the spiritual
guidance of the Reformers. It first was impartial, and
commanded the preachers of the canton to teach the Word
of God, and to be silent about the traditions of men (1520).
Then it prohibited the violation of the Church fasts (1522),
and punished the image-breakers, in the interest of law and
order (1523). But soon afterwards it openly espoused the
cause of reform in the disputation of 1523, and authorized
the abolition of the old worship and the introduction of the
new (1524 and 1525). It confiscated the property of the
churches and convents, and took under its control the regu
lation of marriage, the care of the poor, and the education
of the clergy. The Church was reduced legally to a state of

1 Bluntschli (Geschichte des schweizerischen Bundesrechles, Stuttgart, 1875,
2d ed. I. 293 sq.) : "Zwingli wur von An fang an und durch sein games Leben
hindurch kaum viel weniger darauf bedacht, politisch einzugreifen als die Kirche
zu reformiren. Wahrend Luther mit ganzer Seele die Wiederbelebung und Reinigung
des christlichen Glaubens anstrebte und sich ausschliesslich dieser Aufgabe icidmete,
icollte Zwingli nicht bloss Kirchen-, sondern zugleich auch Staatsmann sein. Indern
sich Zwingli der kirchlichen Reformation in der Schweiz bemdchtigte rind diest
von Zurich aus iiber die ganze Schweiz zu verbreiten trachtete, ging er zugleich mit
Planen urn, die Schweiz politisch umzugestalten."

§ 23. CHURCH AND STATE. 67

dependence, though she was really the moving and inspiring
power of the State, and was supported by public sentirtfent.
In a republic the majority of the people rule, and the minor
ity must submit. The only dissenters in Zurich were a small
number of Romanists and Anabaptists, who were treated
with the same disregard of the rights of conscience as the
Protestants in Roman Catholic countries, only with a lesser
degree of severity. The Reformers refused to others the
right of protest which they claimed and exercised for them
selves, and the civil magistracy visited the poor Anabaptists
with capital punishment.

The example of Zurich was followed by the other cantons
in which the Reformation triumphed. Each has its own
ecclesiastical establishment, which claims spiritual juris
diction over all the citizens of its territory. There is no
national Reformed Church of Switzerland, with a centre of
unity.

This state of things is the same as that in Protestant
Germany, but differs from it as a republic differs from a
monarchy. In both countries the bishops, under the com
mand of the Pope, condemned Protestantism, and lost the
control over their flock. The Reformers, who were mere
presbyters, looked to the civil rulers for the maintenance of
law and order. In Germany, after the Diet of Speier in
1526, the princes assumed the episcopal supervision, and
regulated the Church in their own territories for p-ood or

o o

evil. The people were passive, and could not even elect
their own pastors. In Switzerland, we have instead a sort
of democratic episcopate or republican Csesaropapacy, where
the people hold the balance of power, and make and unmake
their government.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Church and
State, professing the same religion, had common interests,
and worked in essential harmony ; but in modern times the
mixed character, the religious indifferentism, the hostility

68 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

and the despotism of the State, have loosened the connection,
and provoked the organization of free churches in several
cantons (Geneva, Vaud, Neuchatel), on the basis of self-
support and self-government. The State must first and last
be just, and either support all the religions of its citizens
alike, or none. It owes the protection of law to all, within
the limits of order and peace. But the Church has the right
of self-government, and ought to be free of the control of
politicians.1

Among the ministers of the Reformation period, Zwingli,
and, after his death, Bullinger, exercised a sort of episcopate
in fact, though not in form ; and their successors in the
Great Minster stood at the head of the clergy of the canton.
A similar position is occupied by the Antistes of Basle and
the Antistes of Schaffhausen. They correspond to the Super
intendents of the Lutheran churches in Germany.

Zwingli was the first among the Reformers who organized
a regular synodical Church government. He provided for a
synod composed of all ministers of the city and canton, two
lay delegates of every parish, four members of the small
and four members of the great council. This mixed body
represented alike Church and State, the clergy and the laity.
It was to meet twice a year, in spring and fall, in the city
hall of Zurich, with power to superintend the doctrine and
morals of the clergy, and to legislate on the internal affairs
of the Church. The first meeting was held at Easter, 1528.
Zwingli presided, and at his side was Leo JudcC. The second
meeting took place May 19, 1528. The proceedings show
that the synod exercised strict discipline over the morals of

1 The government of the Protestant cantons of Switzerland tolerates and
supports now, in the pulpit and the chair, all sorts of errors and heresies far
worse than those for which the Anabaptists were drowned in the sixteentli
century. In 1839 the magistracy of Zurich called the infidel Dr. Strauss to
the chair of dogmatic theology in the university ; but on that occasion the
country people asserted their sovereignty, upset the rule of the radical party,
and defeated its aim.

§ 24. ZWINGLI'S CONFLICT WITH RADICALISM. 69

the clergy and people, and censured intemperance, extrava
gance in dress, neglect of Church ordinances, etc.1

But German Switzerland never went to such rigors of
discipline as Geneva under the influence of Calvin.

§ 24. ZwingWs Conflict tvitli Radicalism.

Comp. Literature in vol. VI., § 102, p. 606 sq.

I. SOURCES:

In the Staatsarchiv of Zurich there are preserved about two hundred and
fifty documents under the title, Wiedertduferacten, — *EGLI : Actensammlung zur
Gesch. der Ziircher Reformation, Zurich, 1879 (see the Alph. Index, p. 920, sub
Wiedertdufer} . The official reports are from their opponents. The books of
the Anabaptists are scarce. A large collection of them is in the Baptist
Theological Seminary at Rochester, N.Y. The principal ones are the tracts
of Dr. Hiibmaier (see vol. VI. 606) ; a few letters of Grebel, Hut, Reubli, etc.,
and other documents mentioned and used by Cornelius (Gesch. des Miinster-
schen Aufruhrs*) ; the Moravian, Austrian, and other Anabaptist chronicles
(see Beck, below) ; and the Anabaptist hymns reprinted in Wackernagel's
Deutsche Kirchenlied, vols. III. and V. (see below).

ZWINGLI : Wer Ursach gebe zu Aufruhr, iver die wahren Aufriihrer seien, etc.,
Dec. 7, 1524. A defence of Christian unity and peace against sedition.
( Werke, II. A. 376-425.) Vbm Touff, vom Wiedertouff, und vom Kinder-
touff, May 27, 1525 (in Werke, II. A. 280-303. Republished in modern
German by Christoffel, Ziirich, 1843. The book treats in three parts of
baptism, rebaptism, and infant baptism). Answer to Balthasar Hiibmaier,
Nov. 5, 1525 (Werke, II. A. 337 sqq.). Elenchus contra Catabaptistas, 1527
(Opera, III. 357 sqq.). His answer to Schwenkfeld's 64 Theses concern
ing baptism (in Op. III. 563-583; comp. A. Baur, II. 245-267). CEco-
LAMPADIUS : Ein gesprech etlicher predicanten zu Basel gehalten mit etlichen
Bekennern des Wiedertouffs, Basel, 1525. BULLINGER (HEINRICH) : Der
Wiedertdufferen ur sprung, furgang, Sekten, etc. Zurich, 1560. (A Latin
translation by J. SIMLER.) See also his Reformationsgeschichte, vol. I.

II. LATER DISCUSSIONS :

OTT (J. H.) : Annales Anabaptistici. Basel, 1672.

ERBKAM (H. W.) : Geschichte der protestantischen Secten im Zeitalter der Refor
mation. Hamburg und Gotha, 1848. pp. 519-583.

HEBERLE : Die Anfdnge des Anabaptismus in der Schweiz, in the " Jahrbiicher
fur deutsche Theologie," 1858.

* CORNELIUS (C. A., a liberal Roman Catholic) : Gesc.hichte des Miinsterschen
Aufruhrs. Leipzig, 1855. Zweites Buch : Die Wiedertaufe. 1860. He
treats of the Swiss Anabaptists (p. 15 sqq.), and adds historical docu
ments from many archives (p. 240 sqq.). A very important work.

1 Opera, III. B. 19 sqq. ; Mo'rikofer, II. 121 sq.

70 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

MORIKOFER : U. Zwingli. Zurich, 1867. I. 279-313; II. 69-76. Very unfa vor-
able to the Anabaptists.

R. VON LILIENKRON : Zur Liederdichtung der Wiedertdufer. Miinchen, 1877.

* EGLI (EMIL) : Die Zuricher Wiedertdufer zur Reformationszeit. Nach den

Quellen des Staatsarchivs. Zurich, 1878 (104 pp.). By the same: Die St.
Galler Ttiufer. Zurich, 1887. Important for the documents and the
external history.

* BURRAGE (HENRY S., American Baptist) : The Anabaptists in Switzerland.

Philadelphia, 1882, 231 pp. An account from the Baptist point of view.
Comp. his Baptist Hymn Writers, Portland, 1888, pp. 1-25.

USTERI (J. M.) : Darstellung der Tauflehre Zwingli's, in the " Studien und
Kritiken " for 1882, pp. 205-284.

*BECK (JOSEPH) : Die Geschichtsbiicher der Wiedertdufer in Oestreicli-Ungarn . . .
von Io26 bis ITS 5. Wien, 1883. Publ. by the Imperial Academy of
Sciences in Vienna.

STRASSER (G.) : Der sckweizerische Anabaptismus zur Zeit der Reformation, in
the " Berner Beitrage," 1884.

NITSCHE (RICHARD, Roman Catholic): Geschichte der Wiedertdufer in der Schiveiz
zur Reformationszeit. Einsiedeln, New York, Cincinnati and St. Louis (Ben-
ziger), 1885 (107 pp.). He gives a list of literature on pp. vi.-viii.

KELLER (Lumvio) : Die Reformation und die iiltern Reformparteien. Leipzig,
1885, pp. 364-435. He is favorable to the Anabaptists, and connects
them with the Waldensian Brethren and other mediaeval sects by novel,
but arbitrary combinations and conjectures. He mistakes coincidences
for historical connections.

BAUR (Auo.) : Zwingli' s Theologie, vol. II. (1888), 1-267. An elaborate dis
cussion and defence of Zwingli's conduct towards the radicals, with full
extracts from his writings, but unjust to the Baptists.

The monographs of SCHREIBER on Iliibmaier (1839 and 1840, unfinished),
KEIM on Lndwit/ Hlitzer (1856), and KELLER on Hans Denrk (Ein Apostel der
Wiede/iaiifer, 1882), touch also on the Anabaptist movement in Switzerland.
KURT/, in the tenth ed. of his Kirchengeschichte (1887), II. 150-164, gives a
good general survey of the Anabaptist movement in Germany, Switzerland,
and Holland, including the Mennonites.

Having considered Zwingli's controversy with Romanism,
we must now review his conflict with Radicalism, which ran
parallel with the former, and exhibits the conservative and
churchly side of his reformation. Radicalism was identical
with the Anabaptist movement, but the baptismal question
was seconcUuy. It involved an entire reconstruction of the
Church and of the social order. It meant revolution. The
Romanists pointe*d triumphantly to revolution as the legiti-

§ 24. ZWINGLl's CONFLICT WITH RADICALISM. 71

mate and inevitable result of the Reformation ; but history
has proved the difference. Liberty is possible without license,
and differs as widely from it as from despotism.

The Swiss Reformation, like the German, was disturbed
and checked by the radical excesses. It was placed between
the two tires of Romanism and Ultraprotestantism. It was
attacked in the front and rear, from without and within, —
by the Romanists on the ground of tradition, by the Radicals
on the ground of the Bible. In some respects the danger
from the latter was greater. Liberty has more to fear from
the abuses of its friends than from the opposition of its foes.
The Reformation would have failed if it had identified itself
with the revolution. Zwingli applied to the Radicals the
words of St. John to the antichristian teachers : " They
went out from us, but they were not of us " (1 John 2 : 19).
He considered the controversy with the Papists as mere
child's play when compared to that with the Ultraprotes-
tants.1

The Reformers aimed to reform the old Church by the
Bible ; the Radicals attempted to build a new Church from
the Bible. The former maintained the historic continuity ;
the latter went directly to the apostolic age, and ignored the
intervening centuries as an apostasy. The Reformers founded
a popular state-church, including all citizens with their fami
lies ; the Anabaptists organized on the voluntary principle
select congregations of baptized believers, separated from
the world and from the State. Nothing is more character
istic of radicalism and sectarianism than an utter want of
historical sense and respect for the past. In its extreme
form it rejects even the Bible as an external authority, and
relies on inward inspiration. This was the case with the
Zwickau Prophets who threatened to break up Luther's
work at Wittenberg.

1 He wrote to Vaclian, May 28, 1525 (Opera, VII. 398): " omnes pugnce
priores lusus fuerunt prce ista."

72 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

The Radicals made use of the right of protest against the
Reformation, which the Reformers so effectually exercised
against popery. They raised a protest against Protestantism.
They charged the Reformers with inconsistency and semi-
popery; yea, with the worst kind of popery. They de
nounced the state-church as worldly and corrupt, and its
ministers as mercenaries. They were charged in turn with
Pharisaical pride, with revolutionary and socialistic tenden
cies. They were cruelly persecuted by imprisonment, exile,
torture, fire and sword, and almost totally suppressed in
Protestant as well as in Roman Catholic countries. The age
was not ripe for unlimited religious liberty and congrega
tional self-government. The Anabaptists perished bravely
as martyrs of conscience.1

Zwingli took essentially, but quite independently, the
same position towards the Radicals as Luther did in his
controversy with Carlstadt, Miinzer, and Hiibmaier.2 Luther,
on the contrary, radically misunderstood Zwingli by con
founding him with Carlstadt and the Radicals. Zwingli was
in his way just as conservative and churchly as the Saxon
Reformer. He defended and preserved the state-church,
or the people's church, against a small fraction of sectaries
and separatists who threatened its dissolution. But his
position was more difficult. He was much less influenced
by tradition, and further removed from Romanism. He him
self aimed from the start at a thorough, practical purification
of church life, and so far agreed with the Radicals. More
over, he doubted for a while the expediency (not the right)
of infant baptism, and deemed it better to put off the sac-

1 Luther called them martyrs of the devil; but Leonhard Kaser, to whom
he wrote a letter of comfort, and whom he held up as a model martyr to the
heretical martyrs (see Letters, ed. De Wette, III. 179), was not a Lutheran,
as he thought, but the pastor of an Anabaptist congregation at Scherding.
He was burnt Aug. 18, 1527, by order of the bishop of Passau. See Cor
nelius, II. 56.

2 On Luther and the Radicals see vol. VI. 375 sqq. and 606 sqq.

§ 24. ZWINGLI'S CONFLICT WITH RADICALISM. 73

rament to years of discretion.1 He rejected the Roman
doctrine of the necessity of baptism for salvation and the
damnation of unbaptized infants dying in infancy. He
understood the passage, Mark 16 : 16, " He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved," as applying only to adults
who have heard the gospel and can believe, but not to chil
dren. On maturer reflection he modified his views. He
learned from experience that it was impossible to realize an
ideal church of believers, and stopped with what was attain
able. As to infant baptism, he became convinced of its
expediency in Christian families. He defended it with the
analogy of circumcision in the Old Testament (Col. 2:11),
with the comprehensiveness of the New Covenant, which
embraces whole families and nations, and with the command
of Christ, " Suffer little children to come unto Me," from
which he inferred that he who refuses children to be bap
tized prevents them from coming to Christ. He also appealed
to 1 Cor. 7 : 14, which implies the church-membership of the
children of Christian parents, and to the examples of family
baptisms in Acts 16 : 33, 18 : 8, and 1 Cor. 1 : 16.

The Radical movement began in Zurich in 1523, and lasted
till 1532. The leaders were Conrad Grebel, from one of the
first families of Zurich, a layman, educated in the univer
sities of Vienna and Paris, whom Zwingli calls the corypheus
of the Anabaptists ; Felix Manz, the illegitimate son of a
canon of the Great Minster, a good Hebrew scholar ; Georg
Blaurock, a monk of Coire, called on account of his elo
quence " the mighty Jorg," or " the second Paul " ; and
Ludwig Hatzer of Thurgau, chaplain at Wadenschwyl, who,

1 Hagenbach (p. 357), on the strength of Hottinger, states that the Council
of Zurich, at the advice of Zwingli, by a mandate of Jan. 17, 1525, allowed
a delay of eight years for the baptism of children. But this must be an
error ; for on the eighteenth of January, 1525, the Council, after a disputation
with the Anabaptists, commanded the baptism of all unbaptized children
within eight days, on pain of the banishment of the parents. Egli, Aden-
sammlung, p. 276.

74 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

with Hans Denck, prepared the first Protestant translation
of the Hebrew Prophets,1 and acted as secretary of the
second Zurich disputation, and edited its proceedings. With
them were associated a number of ex-priests and ex-monks,
as William Reubli, minister at Wyticon, Johann Brodli
(Paniculus) at Zollicon, and Simon Stumpf at Hong. They
took an active part in the early stages of the Reformation,
prematurely broke the fasts, and stood in the front rank of
the image-stormers. They went ahead of public opinion and
the orderly method of Zwingli. They opposed the tithe,
usury, military service, and the oath. They denied the right
of the civil magistracy to interfere in matters of religion.
They met as " brethren " for prayer and Scripture-reading in
the house of u Mother Manz," and in the neighborhood of
Zurich, especially at Zollicon.

The German Radicals, Carls. tadt and Miinzer, were for a
short time in Switzerland and on the Rhine, but did not
re-baptize and had no influence upon the Swiss Radicals, who
opposed rebellion to the civil authority. Carlstadt gradu
ally sobered down ; Miinzer stirred up the Peasants' War,
seized the sword and perished by the sword. Dr. Hiibmaier
of Bavaria, the most learned among the Anabaptists, and
their chief advocate, took part in the October disputation at
Zurich in 1523, but aftenvards wrote books against Zwingli
(on the baptism of believers, 1525, and a dialogue with
Zwingli, 1526), was expelled from Switzerland, and organ
ized flourishing congregations in Moravia.

The Radical opinions spread with great rapidity, or rose
simultaneously, in Berne, Basle, St. Gall, Appenzell, all
along the Upper Rhine, in South Germany, and Austria.
The Anabaptists were driven from place to place, and trav
elled as fugitive evangelists. They preached repentance

1 Their translation of the Prophets appeared at Worms in 1527 (and often),
and preceded that of the Zurich Bible (in 1529), and that of Luther, which
was not completed till 1532.

§ 24. ZWIXGLI'S CONFLICT WITH RADICALISM. 75

and faith, baptized converts, organized congregations, and
exercised rigid discipline. They called themselves simply
" brethren " or " Christians." They were earnest and zealous,
self-denying and heroic, but restless and impatient. They
accepted the New Testament as their only rule of faith and
practice, and so far agreed with the Reformers, but utterly
broke with the Catholic tradition, and rejected Luther's
theory of forensic, solifidian justification, and the real pres
ence. They emphasized the necessity of good works, and
deemed it possible to keep the law and to reach perfection.
They were orthodox in most articles of the common Chris
tian faith, except Hatzer and Denck, who doubted the doc
trine of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ.

The first and chief aim of the Radicals was not (as is
usually stated) the opposition to infant baptism, still less to
sprinkling or pouring, but the establishment of a pure church
of converts in opposition to the mixed church of the world.
The rejection of infant baptism followed as a necessary con
sequence. They were not satisfied with separation from
popery ; they wanted a separation from all the ungodly.
They appealed to the example of the disciples in Jerusalem,
who left the synagogue and the world, gathered in an upper
room, sold their goods, and held all things in common. They
hoped at first to carry Zwingli with them, but in vain ; and
then they charged him with treason to the truth, and hated
him worse than the pope.

Zwingli could not follow the Anabaptists without bring
ing the Reformation into discredit with the lovers of order,
and rousing the opposition of the government and the great
mass of the people. He opposed them, as Augustin opposed
the schismatical Donatists. He urged moderation and pa
tience. The Apostles, he said, separated only from the open
enemies of the gospel, and from the works of darkness, but
bore with the weak brethren. Separation would not cure
the evils of the Church. There are many honest people

76 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

who, though weak and sick, belong to the sheepfold of
Christ, and would be offended at a separation. He appealed
to the word of Christ, "He that is not against me, is for me,"
and to the parable of the tares and the wheat. If all the
tares were to be rooted up now, there would be nothing left
for the angels to do on the day of final separation.

§ 25. The Baptismal Controversy.

The opposition to the mixed state-church or popular
church, which embraced all the baptized, legitimately led to
the rejection of infant baptism. A new church required a
new baptism.

This became now the burning question. The Radicals
could find no trace of infant baptism in the Bible, and
denounced it as an invention of the pope 1 and the devil.
Baptism, they reasoned, presupposes instruction, faith, and
conversion, which is impossible in the case of infants.2
Voluntary baptism of adult and responsible converts is,
therefore, the only valid baptism. They denied that baptism
is necessary for salvation, and maintained that infants are or
may be saved by the blood of Christ without water-baptism.3
But baptism is necessary for church membership as a sign
and seal of conversion.

From this conception of baptism followed as a further
consequence the rebaptism of those converts who wished to
unite with the new church. Hence the name Anabaptists
or Rebaptizers ( Wiedertaufer^), which originated with the

1 They derived it from Pope Nicolas II. (A.D. 1059-'61), whose pontificate
was entirely under the control of Hildebrand, afterwards Gregory VII. The
reference shows the prevailing ignorance of Church history. Pedobaptism is
much older than the papacy.

2 Hiibmaier, when in Waldshut, substituted first a simple benediction of
children, in place of baptism, but baptized when the parents wished it. See
Gieseler, III. A. p. 210, note.

3 The Augsburg Confession (Art. IX.) condemns the Anabaptists for
teaching " pueros sine baptismo salvos fieri"

§ 25. THE BAPTISMAL CONTROVERSY. 77

Peclobaptists, but which they themselves rejected, because
they knew no other kind of baptism except that of converts.

The demand of rebaptism virtually unbaptized and un-
christianized the entire Christian world, and completed the
rupture with the historic Church. It cut the last cord of
union of the present with the past.

The first case was the rebaptism of Blaurock by Grebel in
February, 1525, soon after the disputation with Zwingli. At
a private religious meeting, Blaurock asked Grebel to give
him the true Christian baptism on confession of his faith,
fell on his knees and was baptized. Then he baptized all
others who were present, and partook with them of the
Lord's Supper, or, as they called it, the breaking of bread.1
Reubli introduced rebaptism in Waldshut at Easter, 1525,
convinced Hiibmaier of its necessity, and rebaptized him
with about sixty persons. Hiibmaier himself rebaptized
about three hundred.2

1 Fiissli, II. 338. The report of a Moravian Baptist chronicle, quoted by
Cornelius (II. 26 sq.), is as follows: " Und es liat sick begeben, dass sie bei ein-
ander gewesen sind, bis die Angst auf sie kam und sie in ihren Herzen gedrungen
ivurden ; da haben sie angefangen ihre Kniee ZUL beugen vor dem hochsten Gott im
Himmel, und ihn angemfen, dass er ihnen geben wolle, seinen gdttlichen Willen zu
vollbringen. Daraufhat Jury [Blaurock"] sick erhoben und um Gottes willen gebeten,
dass Conrad \_Grebel~] ihn taufe mit der rechten wahren christlichen Taufe auf
seinen Glauben und seine Erkenntniss ; ist wieder auf die Kniee gefallen und von
Conrad getauft worden ; und alle iibrigen Anwesenden haben sich dann von Jtirg
taufen lassen. Hierndchst hat derselbe, seinern eigenen Bericht zufolge, damit die
Br'ddcr des Todes Christi allweg eingedenk wdren und sein vergossen Slut nicht
vergassen, ihnen den Branch Christi angezeigt, den er in seinem Nachtmal gehalten
hat, und zugleich mit ihnen das Brot gebrochen und den Trunk getrunken, damit sie
sich erinnerten, dass sie alle durch den einigen Leib Christi erlcist und durch sein
cinigf-s Blut abgewaschen seien, auf dass sie alle eins und je eincr des anderen
Bruder und Schwester in Christo ihrem Ilerrn wdren."

Cornelius adds to this report : "Diese Dinge haben sich wenige Tage nach der
Disputation des 18. Januar zugetragen, und rasch, noch ehe die Verbannten ihren
Abschied genommen hatten, istt zurn Theil mit ihrer Iliilfe, der Gebrauch der Taufe
und des Ilerrn Brodes nach Zollikon und iiber die ganze Genossenschaft verbreitet
warden."

2 So Hiibmaier testified before the magistrate at Zurich (Egli, Actensamm-
lung, p. 431) : "Da kdme Wilhelm (Reubli~) und toufte ihn (Ilubmaier}, und lies-
send sich uf dasselb mal mit. tJnn bi 60 iiersonen toufen. Darnach habe er die

78 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

Baptism was not bound to any particular form or time or
place or person ; any one could administer the ordinance
upon penitent believers who desired it. It was first done
mostly in houses, by sprinkling or pouring, occasionally by
partial or total immersion in rivers.1

The mode of baptism was no point of dispute between
Anabaptists and Pedobaptists in the sixteenth century. The
Roman Church provides for immersion and pouring as equally
valid. Luther preferred immersion, and prescribed it in his
baptismal service.2 In England immersion was the normal
mode down to the middle of the seventeenth century.3 It
was adopted by the English and American Baptists as the
only mode ; while the early Anabaptists, on the other hand,
baptized by sprinkling and pouring as well. We learn this
from the reports in the suits against them at Zurich. Blau-
rock baptized by sprinkling,4 Manz by pouring.5 The first

Osterfirtag fur und fur nnd ob 300 menschen getouft." Nothing is said about the
mode. Soon afterwards (July 5, 1525), Hiibmaier published his book, Von dem
Ckristlicken Toujf der Gldubigen against Zwingli, but without naming him.
Zwingli replied November, 1525. See A. Baur, Zwingli's Theol, II. 137 sq.,
141 sqq.

1 Nitsche, p. 30 : " Wenn ilber jemand der Geist Gottes kam, beklagte und
beweinte er seine S'unden und bat den ersten besten, ihn zu taufen ; dieser bespritzte
oder uberschiitMe ihn unter Nennung der drei gb'ttlichen Personen mit Wasser.
Einem fb'rmlichen Untertauchen, wie es spdter wohl vorkommt, begegnen wir zundchst
nicht. . . . Meistens wurde die Taufe in irgend einem Hause vollzogen ; aber auch
im Freien wurde getauft : so Rudolph Breitinger bei Gelegenheit eines Spazierganges
am Neppelbach, ein anderer beim Brunnen zu Hirslanden" Egli, p. 23 sq. : "Wie
es scheint, war Blaurock der eigentlich populdre Tdufer und wandte den Gebrauch
allgemeiner an auf den ersten Besten, der weinend zu ihm kam."

2 See vol. VI. 608, note, and my book on the Didache, p. 41 sqq.

3 Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth were immersed, according to the rubric
of the English Prayer Book. Erasmus says, " With us " (on the Continent)
" infants have the water poured on them ; in England they are dipped."

4 In the trial of fourteen Anabaptists, Feb. 7, 1525, Marx Bosshard testi
fied that Hans Bruggbach of Zumikon, after the reading of a portion of the
New Testament in a meeting, confessed and deplored his sins, and requested,
as a sign of his conversion, to be sprinkled in the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost; whereupon Blaurock sprinkled him. " Daraufhabe
ihn Blaurock bespritzt." Egli, Actensammlung , p. 282.

5 In the same suit Jb'rg Schad said, " er habe sich lassen begiissen mit Wasser,
und syg [set] Felix Manz tb'ifer gesin [ Tdufer gewesen']." Ibid., p. 283.

§ 25. THE BAPTISMAL CONTROVERSY. 79

clear case of immersion among the Swiss Anabaptists is that
of Wolfgang Uliman (an ex-monk of Coire, and for a while
assistant of Kessler in St. Gall). He was converted by
Grebel on a journey to Schaffhausen, and, not satisfied with
being " sprinkled merely out of a dish," was "drawn under
and covered over in the Rhine." 1 On Palm Sunday, April
9, 1525, Grebel baptized a large number in the Sitter, a river
a few miles from St. Gall, which descends from the Santis
and flows into the Thur, and is deep enough for immersion.2

The Lord's Supper was administered by the Baptists in
the simplest manner, after a plain supper (in imitation of
the original institution and the Agape), by the recital of the
words of institution, and the distribution of bread and wine.
They reduced it to a mere commemoration.

The two ideas of a pure church of believers and of the bap
tism of believers were the fundamental articles of the Ana
baptist creed. On other points there was a great variety and
confusion of opinions. Some believed in the sleep of the
soul between death and resurrection, a millennial reign of
Christ, and final restoration ; some entertained communistic
and socialistic opinions which led to the catastrophe of
Minister (1534). Wild excesses of immorality occurred here
and there.3

But it is unjust to charge the extravagant dreams and
practices of individuals upon the whole body. The Swiss
Anabaptists had no connection with the Peasants' War,
which barely touched the border of Switzerland, and were
upon the whole, like the Moravian Anabaptists, distinguished
for simple piety and strict morality. Bullinger, who was

1 Kessler, Sabbata, I. 266 (" in dem Rhin von dem Grebel under getriickt und
bedeckt"}. Comp. Burrage, 105.

2 Burrage, p. 117. I was informed by Mr. Steiger of Herisau (Appenzell)
that the modern Baptists in St. Gall and Appenzell baptize by immersion in
the Sitter; but their number has greatly diminished since the death of
Schlatter.

3 As in St. Gall and Appenzell ; see Cornelius, II. 64 sq.

80 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

opposed to them, gives the Zurich Radicals the credit that
they denounced luxury, intemperance in eating and drink
ing, and all vices, and led a serious, spiritual life. Kessler
of St. Gall, likewise an opponent, reports their cheerful
martyrdom, and exclaims, " Alas ! what shall I say of the
people ? They move my sincere pity ; for many of them are
zealous for God, but without knowledge." And Salat, a
Roman Catholic contemporary, writes that with " cheerful,
smiling faces, they desired and asked death, and went into
it singing German psalms and other prayers." l

The Anabaptists produced some of the earliest Protestant
hymns in the German language, which deserve the attention
of the historian. Some of them passed into orthodox col
lections in ignorance of the real authors. Blaurock, Manz,
Hut, Hatzer, Koch, Wagner, Langmantel, Sattler, Schiemer,
Glait, Steinmetz, Biichel, and many others contributed to
this interesting branch of the great body of Christian song.
The Anabaptist psalms and hymns resemble those of Schwenk-
feld and his followers. They dwell on the inner life of the
Christian, the mysteries of regeneration, sanctification, and
personal union with Christ. They breathe throughout a
spirit of piety, devotion, and cheerful resignation under suf
fering, and readiness for martyrdom. They are hymns of
the cross, to comfort and encourage the scattered sheep of
Christ ready for the slaughter, in imitation of their divine

Shepherd.

NOTES.

The Anabaptist hymns appeared in a collection under the title " Aussbund
Etlicher schoner Christlicher Geseng ivie die in der Gefengniss zn Passau im Schloss
von den Schweitzern und aucJi von anderen rechtgliiubitjen Christen hin und her
gedicht word en," 1583, and often. Also in other collections of the sixteenth
century. They are reprinted in Wacknernagel, Das Deutsche Kirchenlied,
vol. III. (1870), pp. 440-491, and vol. V. (1877), pp. 677-887. He embodies
them in this monumental corpus hymnologicum, as he does the Schwenkfeld-

1 A. Baur, who sides altogether with Zwingli, must nevertheless admit
(II. 187) that "the majority of the Swiss Anabaptists were quiet and honor
able people of earnest character and unblemished reputation as citizens."

§ 26. PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 81

ian and the Roman Catholic hymns of the fifteenth century, but under express
reservation of his high-Lutheran orthodoxy. He refuses to acknowledge the
Anabaptists as martyrs any longer (as he had done in his former work on
German hymnology), because they stand, he says (III. 439), " ausserhalb der
Wahrheit, nnsserhalb der heiligen lutherischen Kirche!" Hymnology is the last
place for sectarian exclusiveness. It furnishes one of the strongest evidences
of Christian union in the sanctuary of worship, where theological quarrels
are forgotten in the adoration of a common Lord and Saviour. Luther him
self, as Wackernagel informs us, received unwittingly in his hymn book of
1545 a hymn of the Anabaptist Griinwald, and another of the Schwenkfeldian
Reusner. Wackernagel is happily inconsistent when he admits (p. 440) that
much may be learned from the Anabaptist hymns, and that a noble heart
will not easily condemn those victims of Rome and of the house of Habsburg.
He gives first the hymns of Thomas Miinzer, who can hardly be called an
Anabaptist and was disowned by the better portion.

Burrage, in Baptist Hymn Writers, Portland, 1888, p. 1 sqq., gives some
extracts of Anabaptist hymns. The following stanza, from a hymn of Schie-
mer or Schoner, characterizes the condition and spirit of this persecuted

people: —

" We are, alas, like scattered sheep,

The shepherd not in sight,
Each far away from home and hearth,

And, like the birds of night
That hide away in rocky clefts,

We have our rocky hold,
Yet near at hand, as for the birds,
There waits the hunter bold."

§ 26. Persecution of the Anabaptists.

We pass now to the measures taken against the sepa
ratists. At first Zwingli tried to persuade them in private
conferences, but in vain. Then followed a public disputa
tion, which took place by order of the magistracy in the
council hall, Jan. 17, 1525. Grebel was opposed to it, but
appeared, together with Manz and Reubli. They urged the
usual arguments against infant baptism, that infants cannot
understand the gospel, cannot repent and exercise faith.
Zwingli answered them, and appealed chiefly to circumcision
and 1 Cor. 7 : 14, where Paul speaks of the children of Chris
tian parents as " holy." He afterwards published his views
in a book, " On Baptism, Rebaptism, and Infant Baptism "
(May 27, 1525). Bullinger, who was present at the disputa
tion, reports that the Anabaptists were unable to refute

82 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

Zwingli's arguments and to maintain their ground. Another
disputation was held in March, and a third in November, but
with no better result. The magistracy decided against them,
and issued an order that infants should be baptized as here
tofore, and that parents who refuse to have their children
baptized should leave the city and canton with their families
and goods.

The Anabaptists refused to obey, and ventured on bold
demonstrations. They arranged processions, and passed as
preachers of repentance, in sackcloth and girdled, through
the streets of Zurich, singing, praying, exhorting, abusing
the old dragon (Zwingli) and his horns, and exclaiming,
" Woe, woe unto Zurich ! " l

The leaders were arrested and shut up in a room in the
Augustinian convent. A commission of ministers and
magistrates were sent to them to convert them. Twenty-
four professed conversion, and were set free. Fourteen men
and seven women were retained and shut up in the Witch
Tower, but they made their escape April 5.

Grebel, Manz, and Blaurock were rearrested, and charged
with communistic and revolutionary teaching. After some
other excesses, the magistracy proceeded to threaten those
who stubbornly persisted in their error, with death by drown
ing. He who dips, shall be dipped, — a cruel irony.

It is not known whether Zwingli really consented to the
death sentence, but he certainly did not openly oppose it.2

1 Zwingli, Opera, III. 364.

2 Egli (Die Zurcher Wiedertdufer, p. 93) thinks that if he consented, he did
it with reluctant heart, not, like Calvin in the case of Servetus, with a strong
sense of duty. Keller (Die Reformation, p. 407, note) asserts, on the strength
of Hiibmaier, that Zwingli preached in 1525 that Anabaptists should be
beheaded "according to the imperial laws," but there is no proof of this, and

. Baur (II. 180) denies it. Comp. the correspondence of Capito with Zwingli
on the case of Manz, Opera, VIII. 10, 30, 44. Capito of Strassburg was dis
turbed by the execution of Manz, who had died so heroically, as reported
(mortem obiise magnifice, p. 16) ; but Zwingli assured him that the magistracy
condemned him to death reluctantly and from necessity (quam coacte Senatus

§ 26 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 83

Six executions in all took place in Zurich between 1527
and 1532. Manz was the first victim. He was bound,
carried to a boat, and thrown into the river Limmat near
the lake, Jan. 5, 1527. He praised God that he was about
to die for the truth, and prayed with a loud voice, " Into thy
hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit ! " Bullinger describes
his heroic death. Grebel had escaped the same fate by
previous death in 1526. The last executions took place
March 23, 1532, when Heinrich Karpfis and Hans Herzog
were drowned. The foreigners were punished by exile, and
met death in Roman Catholic countries. Blaurock was
scourged, expelled, and burnt, 1529, at Clausen in the Tyrol.
Hatzer, who fell into carnal sins, was beheaded for adultery
and bigamy at Constance, Feb. 24, 1529. John Zwick, a
Zwinglian, says that " a nobler and more manful death was
never seen in Constance." Thomas Blaurer bears a similar
testimony.1 Hiibmaier, who had fled from Waldshut to
Zurich, December, 1525, was tried before the magistracy,
recanted, and was sent out of the country to recant his re
cantation.2 He labored successfully in Moravia, and was
burnt at the stake in Vienna, March 10, 1528. Three days
afterwards his faithful wife, whom he had married in Walds
hut, was drowned in the Danube.

Other Swiss cantons took the same measures against the
Anabaptists as Zurich. In Zug, Lorenz Fiirst was drowned,
Aug. 17, 1529. In Appenzell, Uliman and others were be
headed, and some women drowned. At Basle, (Ecolampa-
dius held several disputations with the Anabaptists, but
without effect ; whereupon the Council banished them, with
the threat that they should be drowned if they returned

/ndicis part em tandem usurpavify . This is, of course, unsatisfactory. Banish
ment in this case, as in that of Servetus, would have been severe enough.

1 Burrage defends Hatzer against the charges of immorality (p. 200 sqq.) ;
but Keim and Cornelius (II. 59) sustain them.

2 Baur, II. 173 sq. Zwingli's letter to Capito, Jan. 1, 1526, published by
Hud. Stahelin, Briefe aus der Reformationszeit (Basel, 1887), p. 20.

84 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

(Nov. 13, 1530). The Council of Berne adopted the same
course.

In Germany and in Austria the Anabaptists fared still
worse. The Diet of Speier, in April, 1529, decreed that
"every Anabaptist and rebaptized person of either sex be
put to death by sword, or fire, or otherwise." The decree
was severely carried out, except in Strassburg and the do
main of Philip of Hesse, where the heretics were treated
more leniently. The most blood was shed in Roman Catholic
countries. In Gorz the house in which the Anabaptists were
assembled for worship was set on fire. " In Tyrol and Gorz,"
says Cornelius,1 " the number of executions in the year 1531
reached already one thousand ; in Eiisisheim, six hundred.
At Linz seventy-three were killed in six weeks. Duke
William of Bavaria, surpassing all others, issued the fearful
decree to behead those who recanted, to burn those who
refused to recant. . . . Throughout the greater part of
Upper Germany the persecution raged like a wild chase. . . .
The blood of these poor people flowed like water so that
they cried to the Lord for help. . . . But hundreds of them
of all ages and both sexes suffered the pangs of torture
without a murmur, despised to buy their lives by recanta
tion, and went to the place of execution joyfully and singing
psalms."

The blood of martyrs is never shed in vain. The Anabap
tist movement was defeated, but not destroyed ; it revived

, among the Mennonites, the Baptists in England and America,
and more recently in isolated congregations on the Continent.
The questions of the subjects and mode of baptism still
divide Baptist and Pedobaptist churches, but the doctrine of
the salvation of unbaptized infants is no longer condemned
as a heresy ; and the principle of religious liberty and separa
tion of Church and State, for which the Swiss and German
Anabaptists suffered and died, is making steady progress.

1 I. c. II. 57 sq.

§ 27. THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. 85

Germany and Switzerland have changed their policy, and
allow to Baptists, Methodists, and other Dissenters from the
state-church that liberty of public worship which was for
merly denied them ; and the state-churches reap the benefit
of being stirred up by them to greater vitality. In England
the Baptists are one of the leading bodies of Dissenters, and
in the United States the largest denomination next to the
Methodists and Roman Catholics.

§ 27. The Eueharistic Controversy. Zwingli and Luther.

ZWINGLI'S eueharistic writings : On the Canon of the Mass (1523) ; On the
same, against Emser (1524) ; Letter to Matthew Alber at Reutlingen
(1524) ; The 17th ch. of his Com. on the True and False Religion (in Latin
and German, March 23, 1525) ; Answer to Bugenhagen (1525) ; Letter
to Billicanus and Urbanus Ilhegius (1526) ; Address to Osiander of Niirn-
berg (1527) ; Friendly Exegesis, addressed to Luther (Feb. 20, 1527) ;
Reply to Luther on the true sense of the words of institution of the
Lord's Supper (1527) ; The report on the Marburg Colloquy (1529). In
Opera, vol. II. B., III., IV. 173 sqq.
For an exposition of Zwingli's doctrine on the Lord's Supper and his

controversy with Luther, see vol. VI. 520-550 and 669-682; and A. BAUR,

ZwingWs Theol. II. 268 sqq. (very full and fair) .

The eueharistic controversy between Zwingli and Luther
has been already considered in connection with the German
Reformation, and requires only a brief notice here. It lasted
from 1524 to 1529, and culminated in the Colloquy at Mar
burg, where the two views came into closer contact and
collision than ever before or since, and where every argu
ment for or against the literal interpretation of the words
of institution and the corporal presence was set forth with
the clearness and force of the two champions.

Zwingli and Luther agreed in the principle of a state-
church or people's church (Volks-Kirche*)', as opposed to
individualism, separatism, and schism. Both defended the
historic continuity of the Church, and put down the revo
lutionary radicalism which constructed a new church on the
A^oluntary principle. Both retained infant baptism as a part

86 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

of Christian family religion, against the Anabaptists, who
introduced a new baptism with their new church of converts.
Luther never appreciated this agreement in the general
standpoint, and made at the outset the radical mistake of
confounding Zwingli with Carlstaclt and the Radicals.1

But there was a characteristic difference between the two
Reformers in the general theory of the sacraments, and
especially the Lord's Supper. Zwingli stood midway be
tween Luther and the Anabaptists. He regarded the sacra
ments as signs and seals of a grace already received rather
than as means of a grace to be received. They set forth
and confirm, but do not create, the thing signified. He
rejected the doctrine of baptismal regeneration and of the
corporal presence ; while Luther adhered to both with in
tense earnestness and treated a departure as damnable
heresy. Zwingli's 'jheory reveals the spiritualizing and
rationalizing tendency of his mind; while Luther's theory
reveals his realistic and mystical tendency. Yet both were
equally earnest in their devotion to the Scriptures as the
Word of God and the supreme rule of faith and practice.

When they met face to face at Marburg, — once, and only
once, in this life, — they came to agree in fourteen out of
fifteen articles, and even in the fifteenth article they agreed
in the principal part, namely, the spiritual presence and
fruition of Christ's body and blood, differing only in regard
to the corporal presence and oral manducation, which the
one denied, the other asserted. Zwingli showed on that
occasion marked ability as a debater, and superior courtesy

1 A. Baur (Ziv. Theol., II. 811) says on this misunderstanding : " Luther
war f von Anfang an Zwingli mit Miinzer und Karlstadt zusammen. Kein Vbrwurf
und Vorurtheil gegen Zwingli ist ungerecliter, aber auch Jcein Vorwurf glanzender
widerlegt, ah dieser, und zwar eben durch die Klarheit und Bestimmtheit, mit welcher
Zwingli seine Principien gegen die Wiedertdufer entfaltet. Im Gegentheil; die
mtiasslose Subjectivitdt die bei Miinzer, Karlstadt, bei den Wiedertduforn zum
Ausbruch kommt, und die solche Willkiihr bleibt, auch wenn sie sich auf den Such-
staben der Schrift beruft, ist das vollstdndige Gegentheil der Principien Zwingli's."

§ 28. THE WORKS OF ZWINGLI. 87

and liberality as a gentleman. Luther received the impres
sion that Zwingli was a " very good man," 1 yet of a " dif
ferent spirit," and hence refused to accept his hand of
fellowship offered to him with tears. The two men were
differently constituted, differently educated, differently situ
ated and equipped, each for his own people and country;
and yet the results of their labors, as history has proved, are
substantially the same.

§ 28. The Works of Zwingli.

A list of Zwingli's works in the edition of Schuler and Schulthess, vol. VIII.
096-704 ; of his theological works, in Baur, Zwingli's Theol., II. 834-837.

During the twelve short years of his public labors as a
reformer, from 1519 to 1581, Zwingli developed an extraor
dinary literary activity. He attacked the Papists and the
Radicals, and had to reply in self-defence. His advice was
sought from the friends of reform in all parts of Switzer
land, and involved him in a vast correspondence. He wrote
partly in Latin, partly in the Swiss-German dialect. Several
of his books were translated by Leo Judge. He handled the
German with more skill than his countrymen ; but it falls
far short of the exceptional force and beauty of Luther's
German, and could make no impression outside of Switzer
land. The editors of his complete works (Schuler and
Schulthess) give, in eight large octavo volumes, eighty
German and fifty-nine Latin books and tracts, besides two
volumes of epistles by Zwingli and to Zwingli.

His works may be divided into seven classes, as follows : —

1. Reformatory and Polemical Works: (a) against popery

and the papists (on Fasts ; on Images ; on the Mass ; Against

Faber; Against Eck; Against Compar; Against Emser, etc.);

(5) on the controversy with the Anabaptists; (c) on the

1 He called Zwingli " optimits vir," in a letter to Bullinger, written nine years
later (1538).

88 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

Lord's Supper, against Luther's doctrine of the corporal real
presence.

2. Reformatory and Doctrinal : The Exposition of his 67
Conclusions (1524) ; A Commentary on the False and True
Religion, addressed to King Francis I. of France (1525) ; A
Treatise on Divine Providence (1530) ; A Confession of
Faith addressed to the Emperor Charles V. and the Augs
burg Diet (1530) ; and his last confession, written shortly
before his death (1531), and published by Bullinger.

3. Practical and Liturgical: The Shepherd; Forms of
Baptism and the Celebration of the Lord's Supper; Sermons,
etc.

4. Exegetical : Extracts from lectures on Genesis, Exodus,
Psalms, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, the four Gospels, and most of
the Epistles, edited by Leo Judse, Megander, and others.

5. Patriotic and Political: Against foreign pensions and
military service ; addresses to the Confederates, and the
Council of Zurich ; on Christian education ; on peace and
Avar, etc.

6. Poetical: The Labyrinth and The Fable (his earliest
productions) ; three German poems written during the pes
tilence : one written in 1529, and a versified Psalm (69th).

7. Epistles. They show the extent of his influence, and
include letters to Zwingli from Erasmus, Pucci, Pope Adrian
VI., Faber, Vadianus, Glareanus, Myconius, CEcolampadius,
Haller, Megander, Beatus Rhenanus, Urban us Rhegius, Bucer,
Hedio, Capito, Blaurer, Farel, Comander, Bullinger, Fagius,
Pirkheimer, Zasius, Frobenius, Ulrich von Hutten, Philip of
Hesse, Duke Ulrich of Wiirttemberg, and other distinguished
persons.

§ 29. THE THEOLOGY OF ZWINGLI. 89

§ 29. The Theology of Zwingli.

I. ZWINGLI: Commentarius de Vera et Falsa Religione, 1525 (German transla

tion by Leo Judae) ; Fidel Ratio ad Carolum V., 1530; Christiana? Fidei
brevis et dara Expositio, 1531 ; De Providentia, 1530 (expansion of a ser
mon preached at Marburg and dedicated to Philip of Hesse).

II. The theology of Zwingli is discussed by ZELLER, SIGWART, SPORRI,
SCHWEIZER, and most fully and exhaustively by A. BAUR. See lit. § 5,
p. 18. Comp. SCHAFF, Creeds of Christendom, I. 369 sqq., and Church His
tory, VI. 721 sqq.

The dogmatic works of Zwingli contain the germs of
the evangelical Reformed theology, in distinction from the
Roman and the Lutheran, and at the same time several
original features which separate it from the Calvinistic sys
tem. He accepted with all the Reformers the oecumenical
creeds and the orthodox doctrines of the Trinity, and the
divine-human personality of Christ. He rejected with Luther
the scholastic additions of the middle ages, but removed
further from the traditional theology in the doctrine of the
sacraments and the real presence. He was less logical and
severe than Calvin, who surpassed him in constructive
genius, classical diction and rhetorical finish. He drew his
theology from the New Testament and the humanistic cul
ture of the Erasmian type. His love for the classics accounts
for his liberal views on the extent of salvation by which he
differs from the other Reformers. It might have brought
him nearer to Melanchthon ; but Melanchthon was under
the overawing influence of Luther, and was strongly preju
diced against Zwingli. He was free from traditional bondage,
and in several respects in advance of his age.

Zwingli's theology is a system of rational supernaturalism,
more clear than profound, devoid of mysticism, but simple,
sober, and practical. It is prevailingly soteriological, that
is, a doctrine of the way of salvation, and rested on these
fundamental principles : The Bible is the only sure directory
of salvation (which excludes or subordinates human tradi-

90 THE SWISS EEFOEMATION.

tions) ; Christ is the only Saviour and Mediator between
God and men (which excludes human mediators and the
worship of saints) ; Christ is the only head of the Church
visible and invisible (against the claims of the pope) ; the
operation of the Holy Spirit and saving grace are not con
fined to the visible Church (which breaks with the principle
of exclusiveness).

1. Zwingli emphasizes the Word of God contained in the
Bible, especially in the New Testament, as the only rule of
Christian faith and practice. This is the objective principle
of Protestantism which controls his whole theology. Zwingli
first clearly and strongly proclaimed it in his Conclusions
(1523), and assigned to it the first place in his system ; while
Luther put his doctrine of justification by faith or the sub
jective principle in the foreground, and made it the article
of the standing or falling church. But with both Reformers
the two principles so-called resolve themselves into the one
principle of Christ, as the only and sufficient source of sav
ing truth and saving grace, against the traditions of men
and the works of men. Christ is before the Bible, and is
the beginning and end of the Bible. Evangelical Christians
believe in the Bible because they believe in Christ, and not
vice versa. Roman Catholics believe in the Bible because
they believe in the Church, as the custodian and infallible
interpreter of the Bible.

As to the extent of the Bible, or the number of inspired
books, Zwingli accepted the Catholic Canon, with the excep
tion of the Apocalypse, which he did not regard as an apos
tolic work, and hence never used for doctrinal purposes.1
Calvin doubted the genuineness of the Second Epistle of
Peter and the Pauline origin of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Both accepted the canon on the internal testimony of the

1 He missed in it both the style and the genius of St. John. "Non sapit o.s
et inyenium Joannis." Zwingli and Luther were both wrong in their unfavora
ble judgment of the Revelation of " the Son of Thunder."

§ 29. THE THEOLOGY OF ZWINGLI. 91

Holy Spirit, rather than the external authority of the Church.
Luther, on the one hand, insisted in the eucharistic contro
versy on the most literal interpretation of the words of
institution against all arguments of grammar and reason ;
and yet, on the other hand, he exercised the boldest subjec
tive criticism on several books of the Old and New Testa
ments, especially the Epistle of James and the Epistle to
the Hebrews, because he could not harmonize them with his
understanding of Paul's doctrine of justification. He thus
became the forerunner of the higher or literary criticism
which claims the Protestant right of the fullest investigation
of all that pertains to the origin, history, and value of the
Scriptures. The Reformed Churches, especially those of
the English tongue, while claiming the same right, are more
cautious and conservative in the exercise of it; they lay
greater stress on the objective revelation of God than the
subjective experience of man, and on historic evidence than
on critical conjectures.

2. The doctrine of eternal election and providence. Zwin-
gli gives prominence to God's sovereign election as the
primary source of salvation. He developed his view in a
Latin sermon, or theological discourse, on Divine Provi
dence, at the Conference of Marburg, in October, 1529, and
enlarged and published it afterwards at Zurich (Aug. 20,
1530), at the special request of Philip of Hesse.1 Luther
heard the discourse, and had no objection to it, except that
he disliked the Greek and Hebrew quotations, as being out of
place in the pulpit. Calvin, in a familiar letter to Bullinger,
justly called the essay paradoxical and immoderate. It is
certainly more paradoxical than orthodox, and contains some
unguarded expressions and questionable illustrations ; yet
it does not go beyond Luther's book on the " Slavery of the

1 Ad illustrissimum Cattorum Principem Philippum Sermonis de Providentia
Dei anamnerna. In Opera, vol. IV. 79-144. Leo Judae published a German
translation in 1531.

92 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

Human Will," and the first edition of Melanchthon's Loci, or
Calvin's more mature and careful statements. All the Re
formers were originally strong Augustinian predestinarians
and denied the liberty of the human will. Augustin and
Luther proceeded from anthropological premises, namely,
the total depravity of man, and came to the doctrine of pre
destination as a logical consequence, but laid greater stress
on sacramental grace. Zwingli, anticipating Calvin, started
from the theological principle of the absolute sovereignty of
God and the identity of foreknowledge and foreordination.
His Scripture argument is chiefly drawn from the ninth
chapter of Romans, which, indeed, strongly teaches the free
dom of election,1 but should never be divorced from the
tenth chapter, which teaches with equal clearness human
responsibility, and from the eleventh chapter, which prophe
sies the future conversion of the Gentile nations and the
people of Israel.

Zwingli does not shrink from the abyss of supralapsarian-
ism. God, he teaches, is the supreme and only good, and
the omnipotent cause of all things. He rules and adminis
ters the world by his perpetual and immutable providence,
which leaves no room for accidents. Even the fall of Adam,
with its consequences, is included in his eternal will as well
as his eternal knowledge. So far sin is necessary, but only
as a means to redemption. God's agency in respect to sin
is free from sin. since he is not bound by law, and has no
bad motive or affection.2 Election is free and independent ;

1 P. 114: "Xos cum Paulo in hac sentcntia sumus, ut* prcedestinatio libcra sit,
citra oinnem respertitm ben<>, out male fact or um." He refers especially to what
Paul says about God hardening Pharaoh's heart, and hating Esau and loving
Jacob before they were born. But this has reference to their position in
history, and not to their eternal salvation or perdition.

2 De Providentia Dei (p. 113): "Tmpnlit. Dens \latronem] ut occideret ; sed
wque impellit judicem, ut percussorem jn.^t/titc mactct. Et qui impellit, agit sine
omni criminis suspicione ; non enim est *nb /ege. Qm ' rero impellitur^tam abest ut
sit alienus a crimine, ut nullam fere rern gerat sine aliqua labis aspergme, quia sub
lege est." Zwingli defends this view by the illustration of the magistracy

§ 29. THE THEOLOGY OF ZWINGLI. 93

it is not conditioned by faith, but includes faith.1 Salvation
is possible without baptism, but not without Christ. We are
elected in order that we may believe in Christ and bring
forth the fruits of holiness. Only those who hear and reject
the gospel in unbelief are foreordained to eternal punishment.
All children of Christian parents who die in infancy are
included among the elect, whether baptized or not, and their
early death before they have committed any actual sin is a
sure proof of their election.2 Of those outside the Church
we cannot judge, but may entertain a charitable hope, as
God's grace is not bound. In this direction Zwingli was
more liberal than any Reformer and opened a new path.
St. Augustin moderated the rigor of the doctrine of predes
tination by the doctrine of baptismal regeneration and the
hypothesis of future purification. Zwingli moderated it by
extending the divine revelation and the working of the
Holy Spirit beyond the boundaries of the visible Church and
the ordinary means of grace.

It is very easy to caricature the doctrine of predestina
tion, and to dispose of it by the plausible objections that it
teaches the necessity of sin, that it leads to fatalism and
pantheism, that it supersedes the necessity of personal effort
for growth in grace, and encourages carnal security. But
every one who knows history at all knows also that the

taking a man's life. So a soldier may kill an enemy in battle, without com
mitting murder. Melanchthon traced (1521) the adultery and murder of
David and the treason of Judas to the Divine impulse ; but lie abandoned
afterwards (1535) this " Stoic figment of fatalism."

1 P. 121: "Fides us datur, (/ui ad vitam eternam e/e<:ti et ordinnti sunt ; sic
to men ut electio antecedat, et fides velut symbolum electionem sequatur. Sic enim
habf-t Paulus, Rom. 8 : 29."

2 He reasons thus : Nothing separates us from God but sin; children have
not committed actual sin ; Christ has expiated for original sin ; consequently
children of Christian parents, about whom we have an express promise, are
certainly among the elect if they are taken away in infancy. "Defnnyi in
i/lis electionis an/tutm cat jierfnde <ic fides in udultis. Et </t.ti reprobi stint et a Deo
repudiati, in hoc statn innoccntice non morinntur, xed divina providentia servantur
ut repudiatio illorum criminosa vita notetur." (P. 127.)

94 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

strongest predestinarians were among the most earnest and
active Christians. It will be difficult to find purer and holier
men than St. Augustin and Calvin, the chief champions of
this very system which bears their name. The personal
assurance of election fortified the Reformers, the Huguenots,
the Puritans, and the Covenanters against doubt and de
spondency in times of trial and temptation. In this personal
application the Reformed doctrine of predestination is in
advance of that of Augustin. Moreover, every one who has
some perception of the metaphysical difficulties of reconcil
ing the fact of sin with the wisdom and holiness of God, and
harmonizing the demands of logic and of conscience, will
judge mildly of any earnest attempt at the solution of the
apparent conflict of divine sovereignty and human responsi
bility.

And yet we must say that the Reformers, following the
lead of the great saint of Hippo, went to a one-sided extreme.
Melanchthon felt this, and proposed the system of synergism,
which is akin to the semi-Pelagian and Arminian theories.
(Ecolampadius kept within the limits of Christian experi
ence and expressed it in the sound sentence, "Salus nostra
ex Deo, perditio nostra ex nobis." We must always keep in
mind both the divine and the human, the speculative and
the practical aspects of this problem of ages ; in other words,
we must combine divine sovereignty and human responsi
bility as complemental truths. There is a moral as well as
an intellectual logic, — a logic of the heart and conscience
as well as a logic of the head. The former must keep the
latter in check and save it from running into supralapsa-
rianism and at last into fatalism and pantheism, which is
just as bad as Pelagianism.

3. Original sin and guilt. Here Zwingli departed from
the Augustinian and Catholic system, and prepared the way
for Arminian and Socinian opinions. He was far from de
nying the terrible curse of the fall and the fact of original

§ 29. THE THEOLOGY OF ZWINGLI. 95

sin ; but he regarded original sin as a calamity, a disease, a
natural defect, which involves no personal guilt, and is not
punishable until it reveals itself in actual transgression. It
is, however, the fruitful germ of actual sin, as the inborn
rapacity of the wolf will in due time prompt him to tear the
sheep.1

4. The doctrine of the sacraments, and especially of the
Lord's Supper, is the most characteristic feature of the Zwin-
glian, as distinct from the Lutheran, theology. Calvin's
theory stands between the two, and tries to combine the
Lutheran realism with the Zwinglian spiritualism. This
subject has been sufficiently handled in previous chapters.2

5. Eschatology. Here again Zwingli departed further
from Augustin and the mediaeval theology than any other
Reformer, and anticipated modern opinions. He believed
(with the Anabaptists) in the salvation of infants dying in
infancy, whether baptized or not. He believed also in the
salvation of those heathen who loved truth and righteousness
in this life, and were, so to say, unconscious Christians, or
pre-Christian Christians. This is closely connected with his
humanistic liberalism and enthusiasm for the ancient classics.
He admired the wisdom and the virtue of the Greeks and
Romans, and expected to meet in heaven, not only the saints
of the Old Testament from Adam down to John the Baptist,
but also such men as Socrates, Plato, Pindar, Aristides, Numa,
Cato, Scipio, Seneca ; yea, even such mythical characters as
Hercules and Theseus. There is, he says, no good and holy
man, no faithful soul, from the beginning to the end of the
world, that shall not see God in his glory.3

1 He describes original sin in Latin as defectus naturalis and conditio misera,
in German as a Brest or Gebrechen, i.e. disease. He compares it to the misfor
tune of one born in slavery. He explains his view more fully in his tract,
De peccato orfginali ad Urbanum Rhegium, 1526 {Opera, III. 627-645), and
in his Confession to Charles V.

2 § 27, p. 85 sq. ; vol. VI. 620 sqq., and Creeds of Christendom, I. 372-377.

3 He often speaks on this subject in his epistles, commentaries, the tract

96 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

Zwingli traced salvation exclusively to the sovereign grace
of God, who can save whom, where, and how he pleases, and
who is not bound to any visible means. But he had no idea
of teaching salvation without Christ and his atonement, as
he is often misunderstood and misrepresented. " Christ," he
says (in the third of his Conclusions), " is the only wisdom,
righteousness, redemption, and satisfaction for the sins of
the whole world. Hence it is a denial of Christ when we
confess another ground of salvation and satisfaction." He
does not say (and did not know) where, when, and how
Christ is revealed to the unbaptized subjects of his saving
<.;Tace : this is hidden from mortal eyes ; but we have no
right to set boundaries to the infinite wisdom and love of
God.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches the necessity of bap
tism for salvation, and assigns all heathen to hell and all
unbaptized children to the limbus infantum (a border region
of hell, alike removed from burning pain and heavenly bliss).
Lutheran divines, who accept the same baptismal theory,
must consistently exclude the unbaptized from beatitude, or
leave them to the uncovenanted mercy of God. Zwingli
and Calvin made salvation depend on eternal election, which
may be indefinitely extended beyond the visible Church
and sacraments. The Scotch Presbyterian Confession con
demns the "horrible dogma" of the papacy concerning the
damnation of unbaptized infants. The Westminster Con
fession teaches that "elect infants dying in infancy," and
" all other elect persons, who are incapable of being out
wardly called by the ministry of the word, are saved by

on Providence, and most confidently at the close of his Exposition of the
Christian Faith, addressed to the king of France. See the passages in Schaff,
Creeds of Christendom, I. 382, and A. Baur, I.e. II. 772. Comp. also Zeller,
I.e. p. 163 ; Alex. Schweizer, Die Prof. Centraldogmen, I. 94 sqq., and Reform.
Glaubenslehre, II. 10 sq. ; Dorner, Gesch. der protest. TheoL, p. 284 (who with
his usual fairness vindicates Zwingli against misrepresentations).

§ 29. THE THEOLOGY OF ZWINGLI. 97

Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where,
and how he pleaseth." l

The old Protestant eschatology is deficient. It rejects the
papal dogma of purgatory, and gives nothing better in its
place. It confounds Hades with Hell (in the authorized
translations of the Bible2), and obliterates the distinction
between the middle state before, and the final state after, the
resurrection. The Roman purgatory gives relief in regard
to the fate of imperfect Christians, but none in regard to the
infinitely greater number of unbaptized infants and adults
who never hear of Christ in this life. Zwingli boldly ven
tured on a solution of the mysterious problem which is more
charitable and hopeful and more in accordance with the
impartial justice and boundless mercy of God.

His charitable hope of the salvation of infants dying in
infancy and of an indefinite number of heathen is a renewal
and enlargement of the view held by the ancient Greek
Fathers (Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen,
Gregory of Nyssa). It was adopted by the Baptists, Arme
nians, Quakers, and Methodists, and is now held by the great
majority of Protestant divines of all denominations.

1 Chapter X. 3. " Elect" infants, however, implies, in the strict Calvinistic
system, " reprobate " infants who are lost. This negative feature has died
out. See on this subject Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I. 378-384, and his
Creed Revision in the Presbyterian Churches, New York, 1890, p. 17 sqq.

2 This serious error is corrected in the Revised English Version of 1881.
It is an anachronism when a scholar of the nineteenth century denies the
distinction between Hades or Sheol (i.e. the spirit-world or realm of the dead)
and Gehenna (i.e. hell, or the place and state of the lost).

CHAPTER IV.
SPREAD OF THE* REFORMATION IK SWITZERLAND.

§ 30. The Siviss Diet and the Conference at Baden, 1526.

THOMAS MURKER : Die Disputation vor den XII Orten einer loblichen Eidgenos-
senschaft . . . zu Baden gehalten. Luzern, 1527. This is the official Catholic
report, which agrees with four other protocols preserved in Zurich.
(Miiller-Hottinger, VII. 84.) Murner published also a Latin edition,
Causa Helvetica orthodoxw jidei, etc. Lucernse, 1528. BULLINGER, I. 331
sqq. The writings of ZWINGLI, occasioned by the Disputation in Baden,
in his Opera, vol. II. B. 396-522.

HOTTINGER : Geschichte der Eidgenossen waJtrend der Zeit der Kirchentrennung ,
pp. 77-96. MORIKOFER : Zw.t II. 34-43. MERLE : Reform., Bk. XI. ch. 13.
HERZOG : Oekolampad, vol. II. ch. 1. HAGENBACH : Oekolampad, pp. 90-98.
A. BAUR : Zw.'s TheoL, I. 501-518.

THE Diet of Switzerland took the same stand against the
Zwinglian Reformation as the Diet of the German Em
pire against the Lutheran movement. Both Diets consisted
only of one house, and this was composed of the hereditary
nobility and aristocracy. The people were not directly rep
resented by delegates of their own choice. The majority of
voters were conservative, and in favor of the old faith ; but
the majority of the people in the larger and most prosperous
cantons and in the free imperial cities favored progress and
reform, and succeeded in the end.

The question of the Reformation was repeatedly brought
before the Swiss Diet, and not a few liberal voices were
heard in favor of abolishing certain crying abuses ; but the
majority of the cantons, especially the old forest-cantons
around the lake of Lucerne, resisted every innovation.
Berne was anxious to retain her political supremacy, and
vacillated. Zwingli had made many enemies by his opposi-

§ 30. THE SWISS DIET. 99

tion to the foreign military service and pensions of his coun
trymen. Dr. Faber, the general vicar of the diocese of
Constance, after a visit to Rome, openly turned against his
former friend, and made every effort to unite the interests
of the aristocracy with those of the hierarchy. " Now," he
said, " the priests are attacked, the nobles will come next." l

At last the Diet resolved to settle the difficulty by a public
disputation. Dr. Eck, well known to us from the disputa
tion at Leipzig for his learning, ability, vanity and conceit,2
offered his services to the Diet in a flattering letter of Aug.
13, 1524. He had then just returned from a third visit to
Rome, and felt confident that he could crush the Protestant
heresy in Switzerland as easily as in Germany. He spoke
contemptuously of Zwingli, as one who "had no doubt
milked more cows than he had read books." About the
same time the Roman counter-reformation had begun to be
organized at the convent of Regensburg (June, 1524), under
the lead of Bavaria and Austria.

The disputation was opened in the Catholic city of Baden,
in Aargau, May 21, 1526, and lasted eighteen days, till the
8th of June. The cantons and four bishops sent deputies,
and many foreign divines were present. The Protestants
were a mere handful, and despised as " a beggarly, miserable
rabble." Zwingli, who foresaw the political aim and result
of the disputation, was prevented by the Council of Zurich
from leaving home, because his life was threatened ; but he
influenced the proceedings by daily correspondence and
secret messengers. No one could doubt his courage, which
he showed more than once in the face of greater danger,
as when he went to Marburg through hostile territory, and
to the battlefield at Cappel. But several of his friends were
sadly disappointed at his absence. He would have equalled
Eck in debate and excelled him in biblical learning. Eras-

1 "Jetzst geht's iiber die Geistlichen, dann kommt es an die Junker."

2 Comp. vol. VI. § 87, p. 178 sqq.

100 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

mus was invited, but politely declined on account of sick
ness.

The arrangements for the disputation and the local sym
pathies were in favor of the papal party. Mass was said
every morning at five, and a sermon preached ; the pomp of
ritualism was displayed in solemn processions. The presid
ing officers and leading secretaries were Romanists ; nobody
besides them was permitted to take notes.1 The disputation
turned on the real presence, the sacrifice of the mass, the
invocation of the Virgin Mary and of saints, on images, pur
gatory, and original sin. Dr. Eck was the champion of the
Roman faith, and behaved with the same polemical dex
terity and overbearing and insolent manner as at Leipzig :
robed in damask and silk, decorated with a golden ring,
chain and cross ; surrounded by patristic and scholastic
folios, abounding in quotations and arguments, treating his
opponents with proud contempt, and silencing them with his
stentorian voice and final appeals to the authority of Rome.
Occasionally he uttered an oath, "Potz Marter?' A contem
porary poet, Nicolas Manuel, thus described his conduct : —

" Eck stamps with his feet, and claps his hands,

He raves, he swears, he scolds;
' I do,' cries he, ' what the Pope commands,
And teach whatever he holds.'"2

(Ecolampadius of Basle and Haller of Berne, both plain
and modest, but able, learned and earnest men, defended
the Reformed opinions. (Ecolampadius declared at the
outset that he recognized no other rule of judgment than
the Word of God. He was a match for Eck in patristic

1 Nevertheless, two young friends of the Reformation published reports
from memory.

2 In Eck's und Faber's Badenfahrt :

"Eck zappelt mit Fiissen und Hdnden,
Fing an zu schelten und schunden.
Er sprach : Ich blib bi/ dem Ver stand,
Den Papst, Cardinal, und Bishof hand."

§ 30. THE SWISS DIET. 101

learning, and in solid arguments. His friends said, " (Eco-
lampadius is vanquished, not by argument, but by vocifera
tion." l Even one of the Romanists remarked, " If only
this pale man were on our side ! " His host judged that he
must be a very pious heretic, because he saw him constantly
engaged in study and prayer ; while Eck was enjoying rich
dinners and good wines, which occasioned the remark, " Eck
is bathing in Baden, but in wine." 2

The papal party boasted of a complete victory. All inno
vations were forbidden ; Zwingli was excommunicated ; and
Basle was called upon to depose QEcolampadius from the
pastoral office. Faber, not satisfied with the burning of
heretical books, advocated even the burning of the Protes
tant versions of the Bible. Thomas Murner, a Franciscan
monk and satirical poet, who was present at Baden, heaped
upon Zwingli and his adherents such epithets as tyrants,
liars, adulterers, church robbers, fit only for the gallows !
He had formerly (1512) chastised the vices of priests and
monks, but turned violently against the Saxon Reformer, and
earned the name of " Luther-Scourge " {Luther omastix). He
was now made lecturer in the Franciscan convent at Lucerne,
and authorized to edit the acts of the Baden disputation.3

1 "Nicht iibe rd i spilt irt, aber iiberschrieen ist er."

2 In another witty poem, quoted by Bullinger (I. 357 sq.), the two disputants
are thus contrasted : —

"Also fing an die Disputaz :
Hans Eck empfing da manchen Kratz,
Das that ihn ilbel schmerzen,
Denn alles, was er flirherbracht,
That ih in Hans Hassclujn [G^kolampadius} klirzen.

Herr Doctor Husschyn hochgelehrt
Hat sich gen Ecken tapfer gwehrt,
Oft gnommen Schwert und Stangen.
Eck floh dann zu dem rdm'schen Stuhl
Und auch all sin Anhangen."

3 He also issued, in 1527, an almanac with satirical caricatures of heretics,
where Zwingli is represented hanging on the gallows, and is called "Kirchen-
dieb," "Feigenfresser," "Geiger des heil. Evangelinms mid Lautenschlager des Alien
und Neuen Testaments," etc. Kessler's Sabbata, Schaffhausen, 1865, and Hagen-
bach, p. 372.

102 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

The result of the Baden disputation was a temporary
triumph for Rome, but turned out in the end, like the Leip
zig disputation of 1519, to the furtherance of the Reforma
tion. Impartial judges decided that the Protestants had
been silenced by vociferation, intrigue and despotic meas
ures, rather than refuted by sound and solid arguments from
the Scriptures. After a temporary reaction, several cantons
which had hitherto been vacillating between the old and the
new faith, came out in favor of reform.

§ 31. The Reformation in Berne.

I. The acts of the disputation of Berne were published in 1528 at Zurich and

Strassburg, afterwards repeatedly at Berne, and are contained, together
with two sermons of Zwingli, in ZWINGLI'S Werke, II. A. 63-229. —
VALERIUS ANSHELM : Berner Chronik, new ed. by Stierlin and Wyss.
Bern, 1884, '86, 2 vols. STURLER : Urkunden der Bernischen Kirchenreform.
Bern, 1862. STRICKLER: Aktensammlung, etc. Zurich, 1878 (I. 1).

II. KUHN : Die Reformatoren Berns. Bern, 1828. SAM. FISCHER : Geschichte
der Disputation ZH Bern. Zurich, 1828. MELCH. KIRCHHOFER : Berthold
Hal/er oder die Reformation zu Bern. Zurich, 1828. C. PESTALOZZI : B.
Hatter, nach handschriftl. und gleichzeitigen Quellen. Elberfeld, 1861. The
monographs on Nic.laus Manuel by GRUNEISEN, Stuttgart, 1837, and by
BACHTHOLD, Frauenfeld, 1878. HUNDESHAGEX : Die Con ft fete dcs Zwin-
i/fianismus, Lutherthums und Calvinismus in der Bernischen Landeskirche von
1532- '58. Bern, 1842. F. TRECHSEL: articles Berner Disputation and
Berner Sy nodus, and Iluller, in Herzog'2, II. 313-324, and V 556-561.
Berner Beitruye, etc., 1884, quoted on p. 15. See also the lit. by NIPPOLD
in his Append, to Hagenbach's Reform. Gesch., p. 695 sq.

III. KARL LUDWIG VONT HALLER (a distinguished Bernese and convert to
Romanism, expelled from the Protestant Council of Berne, 1820; d. 1854):
Geschichte der kirchlichen Revolution oder protestantischen Reform des Kantons
Bern und umliegender Gegenden. Luzern, 1836 (346 pages). French trans
lation, Ifistoire de la revolution religieuse dans la Swiss occidentale. Paris,
1839. This is a reactionary account professedly drawn from Protestant
sources and represents the Swiss Reformation as the mother of the
Revolution of 1789. To the French version of this book Archbishop
Spalding of Baltimore (he does not mention the original) confesses to
be " indebted for most of the facts " in his chapter on the Swiss Reforma
tion which he calls a work established " by intrigue, chicanery, persecu
tion, and open violence ! " II int. of the Prot. Ref. in Germany and Switz
erland, I. 181, 186 (8th ed., Baltimore, 1875).

§ 31. THE REFORMATION IN BERNE. 103

Berne, the largest, most conservative and aristocratic of
the Swiss cantons, which contains the political capital of
the Confederacy, was the first to follow Zurich, after consid
erable hesitation. This was an event of decisive importance.

The Reformation was prepared in the city and throughout
the canton by three ministers, Sebastian Meyer, Berthold
Haller, and Francis Kolb, and by a gifted layman, Niclaus
Manuel, — all friends of Zwingli. Meyer, a Franciscan
monk, explained in the convent the Epistles of Paul, and in
the pulpit, the Apostles' Creed. Haller, a native of Wiirt-
emberg, a friend and fellow-student of Melanchthon, an
instructive preacher and cautious reformer, of a mild and
modest disposition, settled in Berne as teacher in 1518, was
elected chief pastor at the cathedral 1521, and labored there
faithfully till his death (1536). He was often in danger,
and wished to retire ; but Zwingli encouraged him to remain
at the post of duty. Without brilliant talents or great
learning, he proved eminently useful by his gentle piety and
faithful devotion to duty. Manuel, a poet, painter, warrior
and statesman, helped the cause of reform by his satirical
dramas, which were played in the streets, his exposure of
Eck and Faber after the Baden disputation, and his influ
ence in the council of the city (d. 1530). His services to
Zwingli resemble the services of Hutten to Luther. The
Great Council of the Two Hundred protected the ministers
in preaching the pure gospel.

The Peasants' War in Germany and the excesses of the
Radicals in Switzerland produced a temporary reaction in
favor of Romanism. The government prohibited religious
controversy, banished Meyer, and ordered Haller, 011 his
return from the Baden disputation, to read Romish mass
again ; but he declined, and declared that he would rather
give up his position, as he preferred the Word of God to his
daily bread. The elections in 1527 turned out in favor of
the party of progress. The Romish measures were revoked.

104 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

and a disputation ordered to take place Jan. 6, 1528, in
Berne.

The disputation at Berne lasted nineteen days (from Jan.
6 to 26). It was the Protestant counterpart of the disputa
tion at Baden in composition, arrangements and result. It
had the same effect for Berne as the disputations of 1523 had
for Zurich. The invitations were general ; but the Roman
Catholic cantons and the four bishops wrho were invited
refused, with the exception of the bishop of Lausanne, to
send delegates, deeming the disputation of Baden final. Dr.
Eck, afraid to lose his fresh laurels, was unwilling, as he said,
uto follow the heretics into their nooks and corners"; but
he severely attacked the proceedings. The Reformed party
was strongly represented by delegates from Zurich, Basel,,
and St. Gall, and several cities of South Germany. Zurich
sent about one hundred ministers and laymen, with a strong
protection. The chief speakers on the Reformed side were
Zwingli, Haller, Kolb, (Ecolampadius, Capito, and Bucer
from Strassburg; on the Roman side, Grab, Huter, Treger,
Christen, and Burgauer. Joachim von Watt of St. Gall
presided. Popular sermons were preached during the dis
putation by Blaurer of Constance, Zwingli, Bucer, (Ecolam-
padius, Megander, and others.

The Reformers carried an easy and complete victory, and
reversed the decision of Baden. The ten Theses or Con
clusions, drawn up by Haller and revised by Zwingli, were
fully discussed, and adopted as a sort of confession of faith
for the Reformed Church of Berne. They are as follows : —

1. The holy Christian Church, whose only Head is Christ, is born of the
Word of God, and abides in the same, and listens not to the voice of a
stranger.

2. The Church of Christ makes no laws and commandments without the
Word of God. Hence human traditions are no more binding on us than as
far as they are founded in the Word of God.

3. Christ is the only wisdom, righteousness, redemption, and satisfaction
for the sins of the whole world. Hence it is a denial of Christ when we
confess another ground of salvation and satisfaction.

§ 31. THE REFORMATION IN BERNE. 105

4. The essential and corporal presence of the body and blood of Christ
cannot be demonstrated from the Holy Scripture.

5. The mass as now in use, in which Christ is offered to God the Father
for the sins of the living and the dead, is contrary to the Scripture, a blas
phemy against the most holy sacrifice, passion, and death of Christ, and on
account of its abuses an abomination before God.

6. As Christ alone died for us, so he is also to be adored as the only
Mediator and Advocate between God the Father and the believers. There
fore it is contrary to the Word of God to propose and invoke other mediators.

7. Scripture knows nothing of a purgatory after this life. Hence all
masses and other offices for the dead l are useless.

8. The worship of images is contrary to Scripture. Therefore images
should be abolished when they are set up as objects of adoration.

9. Matrimony is not forbidden in the Scripture to any class of men ; but
fornication and unchastity are forbidden to all.

10. Since, according to the Scripture, an open fornicator must be excom
municated, it follows that unchastity and impure celibacy are more pernicious
to the clergy than to any other class.

All to the glory of God and his holy Word.

Zwingli preached twice during the disputation.2 He was
in excellent spirits, and at the height of his fame and public
usefulness. In the first sermon he explained the Apostles'
Creed, mixing in some Greek and Hebrew words for his
theological hearers. In the second, he exhorted the Bernese
to persevere after the example of Moses and the heroes of
faith. Perseverance alone can complete the triumph. (Fe-
rendo vincitur fortuna.') Behold these idols conquered, mute,
and scattered before you. The gold you spent upon them
must henceforth be devoted to the good of the living images
of God in their poverty. " Hold fast," he said in conclusion,
"to the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free (Gal. 5 : 1).
You know how much we have suffered in our conscience,
how we were directed from one false comfort to another,
from one commandment to another which only burdened
our conscience and gave us no rest. But now ye have found
freedom and peace in the knowledge and faith of Jesus
Christ. From this freedom let nothing separate you. To

1 " All todtendienst, als vigil, seelmess, seelgrat, sibend, dryssgest, jarzyt, kerzen,
und derqlychen."

2 The sermons are printed in Werke, II. B. 203-229.

106 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

hold it fast requires great fortitude. You know how our
ancestors, thanks to God, have fought for our bodily liberty ;
let us still more zealously guard our spiritual liberty ; not
doubting that God, who has enlightened and drawn you,
will in due time also draw our dear neighbors and fellow-
confederates to him, so that we may live together in true
friendship. May God, who created and redeemed us all,
grant this to us and to them. Amen."

By a reformation edict of the Council, dated Feb. 7,
1528, the ten Theses were legalized, the jurisdiction of the
bishops abolished, and the necessary changes in worship
and discipline provisionally ordered, subject to fuller light
from the Word of God. The parishes of the city and can
ton were separately consulted by delegates sent to them
Feb. 13 and afterwards, and the great majority adopted the
reformation by popular vote, except in the highlands where
the movement was delayed.

After the catastrophe of Cappel the reformation was con
solidated by the so-called " Berner Synodus," which met
Jan. 9—14, 1532. All the ministers of the canton, two hun
dred and twenty in all, were invited to attend. Capito, the
reformer of Strassburg, exerted a strong influence by his
addresses. The Synod adopted a book of church polity and
discipline ; the Great Council confirmed it, and ordered
annual synods. Hundeshagen pronounces this constitution
a " true masterpiece even for our times," and Trechsel char
acterizes it as excelling in apostolic unction, warmth, sim
plicity and practical wisdom.1

Since that time Berne has remained faithful to the Re
formed Church. In 1828 the Canton by order of the gov
ernment celebrated the third centenary of the Reformation.

1 The constitution was printed at Basle in the same year, and repeatedly
since. Trechsel gives an epitome of it in Herzog'2, II. 320 sqq.

§ 32. THE REFORMATION IX BASEL. 107

§ 32. The Reformation in Basel. (Ecolampadius.

I. The sources are chiefly in the Bibliotheca Antistitii and the University Library
of Basel, and in the City Library of Zurich ; letters of (ECOLAMPADIUS to
Zwingli, in Bibliander's Epistolai Joh. (Ecolampadii et Huldr. Zwinglii (Basel,
1536, fol.); in Zwingli's Opera, vols. VII. and VIII.; and in HERMINJARD,
Correspondance des Re'formateurs, passim. Several letters of ERASMUS, and
his Consilium Senatui Basiliensi in negotio Lutherano anno 1525 exhibition.
Antiquitates Gernleriance, Tom. I. and II. An important collection of let
ters and documents prepared by direction of Antistes LUKAS GERNLER of
Basel (1625-1675), who took part in the Helvetic Consensus Formula.
The Athence Rauricce sive Catalogus Professorum Academic? Basiliensis, by
Herzog, Basel, 1778. The Basler Chroniken, publ. by the Hist. Soc. of
Basel, ed. with comments by W. VISCHER (son), Leipz. 1872.

II. PET. OCHS : Geschichte der Stadt und Landschaft Basel. Berlin and Leip
zig, 1786-1822. 8 vols. The "Reformation is treated in vols. V. and VI.,
but without sympathy. JAK. BURCKHARDT : Kurze Geschichte der Refor
mation in Basel. Basel, 1819. K. R. HAGENBACH : Kirchliche Denkwur-
digkeiten zur Geschichte Basels seit der Reformation. Basel, 1827 (pp. 268).
The first part also under the special title : Kritische Geschichte und Schick-
sale der ersten Basler Confession. By the same: Die Theologische Schule
Basels und ihrer Lehrer von Stiftung der Hochschule 1460 bis zu De Wette's
Tod 1849 (pp. 75). JARKE (R. Cath.) : Stud ten und Skizzen zur Ge
schichte der Reformation. Schaffhausen (Hurter), 1846 (pp. 576). FRIED.
FISCHER : Der Bildersturm in der Schiveiz und in Basel insbesondere. In
the " Basler Jahrbuch " for 1850. W. VISCHER : Actenstiicke zur Geschichte
der Reformation in Basel. In the " Basler Beitrtige zur vaterliindischen
Geschichte," for 1854. By the same : Geschichte der Universitdt Basel
von der Griindung 1460 bis zur Reformation 1529. Basel, 1860. Boos :
Geschichte der Stadt Basel. Basel, 1877 sqq. The first volume goes to
1501; the second has not yet appeared.

III. Biographical. S. HESS: Lebensgeschichte Joh. Oekolampads. Zurich, 1793
(chiefly from Zurich sources, contained in the Simler collection). J. J.
HERZOG (editor of the well-known " Encyclopedia," d. 1882) : Das Leben
Joh. Oekolampads und die Reformation der Kirche zu Basel. Basel, 1843.
2 vols. Comp. his article in Herzog 2, vol. X. 708-724. K. R. HAGENBACH :
Johann Oekolampad und Oswald Myconius, die Reformatoren Basels. Leben
und ausgewdhlte Schriften. Elberfeld, 1859. His Reformationsgesch., 5th ed.,
by Nippold, Leipzig, 1887, p. 386 sqq. On (Ecolampadius' connection
with the Eucharistic Controversy and part in the Marburg Colloquy, see
SCHAFF, vol. VI. 620, 637, and 642.

The example of Berne was followed by Basel, the wealth
iest and most literary city in Switzerland, an episcopal see
since the middle of the eighth century, the scene of the

108 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

reformatory Council of 1430-1448, the seat of a University
since 1460, the centre of the Swiss book trade, favorably
situated for commerce on the banks of the Rhine and on the
borders of Germany and France. The soil was prepared
for the Reformation by scholars like Wyttenbach and Eras
mus, and by evangelical preachers like Capito and Hedio.
Had Erasmus been as zealous for religion as he was for
letters, he would have taken the lead, but he withdrew more
and more from the Reformation, although he continued to
reside in Basel till 1529 and returned there to die (1536). 1

The chief share in the work fell to the lot of (Ecolampa-
dius (1482-1531). He is the second in rank and importance
among the Reformers in German Switzerland. His relation
to Zwingli is similar to that sustained by Melanchthon to
Luther, and by Beza to Calvin, — a relation in part subor
dinate, in part supplemental. He was inferior to Zwingli in
originality, force, and popular talent, but surpassed him in
scholastic erudition and had a more gentle disposition. He
was, like Melanchthon, a mail of thought rather than of
action, but circumstances forced him out of his quiet study
to the public arena.

Johann (Ecolampadius2 was born at Weinsberg in the
present kingdom of Wiirtemberg in 1482, studied law in
Bologna, philology, scholastic philosophy, and theology in
Heidelberg and Tubingen with unusual success. He was a
precocious genius, like Melanchthon. In his twelfth year he
ccMiposed (according to Capito) Latin poems. In 1501 he
became Baccalaureus, and soon afterwards Master of Arts.
He devoted himself chiefly to the study of the Greek and

1 On Erasmus and his relation to the Reformation, see above, p. 24 sq., and
especially vol. VI. 399-434.

2 A Greek name given him for Hausschein or Husschyn (Houselainp*) ; but
in the university register of Heidelberg he is entered under the family name
of Hussgen or Henssgen, i.e. Little House. His mother was descended of the
old Basel family of Pfister. Hem-o lie says in the Preface to his Commentary
on Isaiah: " Basilea mihi ab aro />ulr.<i." Sre Hagenbach, Oekol., p. 3 sq.

§ 32. THE REFORMATION IN BASEL. 109

Hebrew Scriptures. Erasmus gave him the testimony of
being the best Hebraist (after Reuchlin). At Tubingen he
formed a friendship with Melanchthon, his junior by fifteen
years, and continued on good terms with him notwithstand
ing their difference of opinion on the Eucharist. He delivered
at Weinsberg a series of sermons on the Seven Words of
Christ on the Cross, which were published by Zasius in 1512,
and gained for him the reputation of an eminent preacher of
the gospel.

In 1515 he received a call, at Capito's suggestion, from
Chris toph von Utenheim, bishop of Basel (since 1502), to
the pulpit of the cathedral in that city. In the year follow
ing he acquired the degree of licentiate, and later that of
doctor of divinity. Christoph von Utenheim belonged to the
better class of prelates, who desired a reformation within the
Church, but drew back after the Diet of Worms, and died at
Delsberg in 1522. His motto was : " The cross of Christ is
my hope ; I seek mercy, not works." 1

(Ecolampadius entered into intimate relations with Eras
mus, who at that time took up his permanent abode in Basel.
He rendered him important service in his Annotations to the
New Testament, and in the second edition of the Greek
Testament (concerning the quotations from the Septuagint
and Hebrew). The friendship afterwards cooled down in
consequence of their different attitude to the question of
reform.

In 1518 QEcolampadius showed his moral severity and zeal
for a reform of the pulpit by an attack on the prevailing
custom of entertaining the people in the Easter season with
all kinds of jokes. " What has," he asks, " a preacher of
repentance to do with fun and laughter ? Is it necessary for
us to yield to the impulse of nature ? If we can crush our
sins by laughter, what is the use of repenting in sackcloth

1 " Spes mea crux Christi ; gratiam, non opera qucero." The motto of Gerson
and many mystics.

110 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

and ashes ? What is the use of tears and cries of sorrow ? . . .
No one knows that Jesus laughed, but every one knows that
he wept. The Apostles sowed the seed weeping. Many as
are the symbolic acts of the prophets, no one of them lowers
himself to become an actor. Laughter and song were repug
nant to them. They lived righteously before the Lord,
rejoicing and yet trembling, and saw as clear as the sun at
noonday that all is vanity under the sun. They saw the net
being drawn everywhere and the near approach of the judge
of the world."1

After a short residence at Weinsberg and Augsburg,
OEcolampadius surprised his friends by entering a convent
in 1520, but left it in 1522 and acted a short time as chaplain
for Franz von Sickingen at Ebernburg, near Creuznach, where
he introduced the use of the German language in the mass.

By the reading of Luther's writings, he became more and
more fixed in evangelical convictions. He cautiously attacked
transubstantiation, Mariolatry, and the abuses of the confes
sional, and thereby attracted the favorable attention of Luther,
who wrote to Spalatin (June 10, 1521) : " I am surprised at
his spirit, not because he fell upon the same theme as I, but
because he has shown himself so liberal, prudent, and Chris
tian. God grant him growth." In June, 1523, Luther ex
pressed to (Ecolampadius much satisfaction at his lectures
on Isaiah, notwithstanding the displeasure of Erasmus, who
would probably, like Moses, die in the land of Moab. " He
has done his part," he says, " by exposing the bad ; to show
the good and to lead into the land of promise, is beyond his
power." Luther and (Ecolampadius met personally at Mar
burg in 1529, but as antagonists on the doctrine of the Lord's
Supper, in which the latter stood on the side of Zwingli.

In Nov. 17, 1522, GEcolampadius settled permanently in
Basel and labored there as preacher of the Church of St.
Martin and professor of theology in the University till his

1 De Risu Paschali, printed by Frobenius at Basel, 1518.

§ 32. THE REFORMATION IN BASEL. Ill

death. Now began his work as reformer of the church of
Basel, which followed the model of Ziirich. He sought the
friendship of Zwingli in a letter full of admiration, dated
Dec. 10, 1522.1 They continued to co-operate in fraternal
harmony to the close of their lives.

(Ecolampadius preached on Sundays and week days, ex
plaining whole books of the Bible after the example of
Zwingli, and attracted crowds of people. With the consent
of the Council, he gradually abolished crying abuses, distrib
uted the Lord's Supper under both kinds, and published in
1526 a German liturgy, which retained in the first editions
several distinctively Catholic features such as priestly abso
lution and the use of lights on the altar.

In 1525 he began to take an active part in the unfortunate
Eucharistic controversy by defending the figurative inter
pretation of the words of institution : " This is (the figure
of) my body," chiefly from the writings of the fathers, with
which he was very familiar.2 He agreed in substance with
Zwingli, but differed from him by placing the metaphor in
the predicate rather than the verb, which simply denotes
a connection of the subject with the predicate whether real
or figurative, and which was not even used by our Lord in
Aramaic. He found the key for the interpretation in John
6 : 63, and held fast to the truth that Christ himself is and
remains the true bread of the soul to be partaken of by faith.
At the conference in Marburg (1529) he was, next to
Zwingli, the chief debater on the Reformed side. By this
course he alienated his old friends, Brentius, Pirkheimer,
Billican, and Luther. Even Melanchthon, in a letter to him
(1529), regretted that the " Jiorribilis dissensio de Ccena
Domini" interfered with the enjoyment of their friendship,

1 Opera Zwinglii, VII. 251, and Zwingli's reply, p. 261. Hagenbach gives
a German translation of the letters, p. 26 sq. and 38.

2 De genuina verborum Domini "hoc est corpus meum" juxta vetustissimos auc-
tores expositione. (Strassburg), September, 1525. Comp. vol. VI. 612 sqq.

112 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

though it did not shake his good will towards him (" benevo-
lentiam erga te meam"). He concluded to be hereafter ua
spectator rather than an actor in this tragedy."

CEcolampadius had also much trouble with the Anabaptists,
and took the same conservative and intolerant stand against
them as Luther at Wittenberg, and Zwingli at Ziirich. He
made several fruitless attempts in public disputations to con
vince them of their error.1

The civil government of Basel occupied for a while middle
ground, but the disputation of Baden, at which CEcolampadius
was the champion of the Reformed doctrines,2 brought on
the crisis. He now took stronger ground against Rome and
attacked what he regarded as the idolatry of the mass. The
triumph of the Reformation in Berne in 1528 gave the final
impetus.

On the 9th of February, 1529, an unbloody revolution
broke out. Aroused by the intrigues of the Roman party,
the Protestant citizens to the number of two thousand came
together, broke to pieces the images still left, and compelled
the reactionary Council to introduce everywhere the form of
religious service practised in Zurich.

Erasmus, who had advised moderation and quiet waiting
for a general Council, was disgusted with these violent meas
ures, which he describes in a letter to Pirkheimer of Niirn-
berg, May 9, 1529. u The smiths and workmen," he says,
" removed the pictures from the churches, and heaped such
insults on the images of the saints and the crucifix itself,
that it is quite surprising there was no miracle, seeing how
many there always used to occur whenever the saints were
even slightly offended. Not a statue was left either in the
churches, or the vestibules, or the porches, or the monasteries.
The frescoes were obliterated by means of a coating of lime ;

1 See above, p. 69 sqq., and the extracts of his disputations with the
Anabaptists in Hagenbach, p. 108 sqq.; Herzog, I. 299 sqq., and II. 75 sqq.

2 See above, p. 100.

§ 32. THE REFORMATION IN BASEL. 113

whatever would burn was thrown into the fire, and the rest
pounded into fragments. Nothing was spared for either love
or money. Before long the mass was totally abolished, so
that it was forbidden either to celebrate it in one's own house
or to attend it in the neighboring villages." 1

The great scholar who had done so much preparatory work
for the Reformation, stopped half-way and refused to identify
himself with either party. He reluctantly left Basel (April
13, 1529) with the best wishes for her prosperity, and resided
six years at Freiburg in Baden, a sickly, sensitive, and dis
contented old man. He was enrolled among the professors
of the University, but did not lecture. He returned to Basel
in August, 1535, and died in his seventieth year, July 12, 1536,
without priest or sacrament, but invoking the mercy of Christ,
repeating again and again, " O Lord Jesus, have mercy on
me ! " He was buried in the Minster of Basel.

Glareanus and Beatus Rhenanus, humanists, and friends of
Zwingii and Erasmus, likewise withdrew from Basel at this
critical moment. Nearly all the professors of the Univer
sity emigrated. They feared that science and learning would
suffer from theological quarrels and a rupture with the
hierarchy.

The abolition of the mass and the breaking of images, the
destruction of the papal authority and monastic institutions,
would have been a great calamity had they not been followed
by the constructive work of the evangelical faith which was
the moving power, and which alone could build up a new
Church on the ruins of the old. The Word of God was
preached from the fountain. Christ and the Gospel were
put in the place of the Church and tradition. German service
with congregational singing and communion was substituted

1 The modern revival of archaeological and artistic taste in Switzerland
has brought about a restoration of the old frescoes and sculptures of the
beautiful Minster and Cloister of Basel, and of the chamber where the great
Council was held.

114 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

for the Latin mass. The theological faculty was renewed
by the appointment of Simon Grynaus, Sebastian Minister,
Oswald Myconius, and other able and pious scholars to
professorships.

(Ecolampadius became the chief preacher of the Minster
and Antistes, or superintendent, of the clergy of Basel.

On the 1st of April, 1529, an order of liturgical service
and church discipline was published by the Council, which
gave a solid foundation to the Reformed Church of the city
of Basel and the surrounding villages.1 This document
breathes the spirit of enthusiasm for the revival of apostolic
Christianity, and aims at a reformation of faith and morals.
It contains the chief articles which were afterwards formu
lated in the Confession of Basel (1534), and rules for a
corresponding discipline. It retains a number of Catholic
customs such as daily morning and evening worship, weekly
communion in one of the city churches, the observance of
the great festivals, including those of the Virgin Mary, the
Apostles, and the Saints.

To give force to these institutions, the ban was introduced
in 1530, and confided to a council of three pious, honest, and
brave laymen for each of the four parishes of the city ; two
to be selected by the Council, and one by the congregation,
who, in connection with the clergy, were to watch over the
morals, and to discipline the offenders, if necessary, by
excommunication. In accordance with the theocratic idea
of the relation of Church and State, dangerous heresies
which denied any of the twelve articles of the Apostles'
Creed, and blasphemy of God and the sacrament, were made
punishable with civil penalties such as confiscation of prop
erty, banishment, and even death. Those, it is said, " shall
be punished according to the measure of their guilt in body,
life, and property, who despise, spurn, or contemn the eternal,
pure, elect queen, the blessed Virgin Mary, or other beloved

i In Ochs, I.e. V. 686 sq. ; Bullinger, II. 82 sqq.

§ 32. THE REFORMATION IN BASEL. 115

saints of God who now live with Christ in eternal blessed
ness, so as to say that the mother of God is only a woman
like other women, that she had more children than Christ,
the Son of God, that she was not a virgin before or after
his birth," etc. Such severe measures have long since passed
away. The mixing of civil and ecclesiastical punishments
caused a good deal of trouble. (Ecolampadius opposed the
supremacy of the State over the Church. He presided over
the first synods.

After the victory of the Reformation, (Ecolampadius con
tinued unto the end of his life to be indefatigable in preach
ing, teaching, and editing valuable commentaries (chiefly on
the Prophets). He took a lively interest in French Prot
estant refugees, and brought the Waldenses, who sent a
deputation to him, into closer affinity with the Reformed
churches.1 He was a modest and humble man, of a delicate
constitution and ascetic habits, and looked like a church
father. He lived with his mother ; but after her death, in
1528, he married, at the age of forty-five, Wilibrandis Rosen
blatt, the widow of Cellarius (Keller), who afterwards
married in succession two other Reformers (Capito and
Bucer), and survived four husbands. This tempted Erasmus
to make the frivolous joke (in a letter of March 21, 1528),
that his friend had lately married a good-looking girl to
crucify his flesh, and that the Lutheran Reformation was a
comedy rather than a tragedy, since the tumult always ended
in a wedding. He afterwards apologized to him, and dis
claimed any motive of unkindness. (Ecolampadius had three
children, whom he named Eusebius, Alitheia, and Irene (God
liness, Truth, Peace), to indicate what were the pillars of his
theology and his household. His last days were made sad
by the news of Zwingli's death, and the conclusion of a peace
unfavorable to the Reformed churches. The call from Ziirich
to become Zwingli's successor he declined. A few weeks

1 See Herzog, II. 239 sqq.; Hagenbach, 150 sqq.

116 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

later, on the 24th of November, 1531, he passed away in peace
and full of faith, after having partaken of the holy com
munion with his family, and admonished his colleagues to
continue faithful to the cause of the Reformation. He was
buried behind the Minster.1

His works have never been collected, and have only his
torical interest. They consist of commentaries, sermons,
exegetical and polemical tracts, letters, and translations from
Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Cyril of Alexandria.2

Basel became one of the strongholds of the Reformed
Church of Switzerland, together with Zurich, Geneva, and
Berne. The Church passed through the changes of German
Protestantism, and the revival of the nineteenth century.
She educates evangelical ministers, contributes liberally from
her great wealth to institutions of Christian benevolence and
the spread of the Gospel, and is (since 1816) the seat of the
largest Protestant missionary institute on the Continent,
which at the annual festivals forms a centre for the friends
of missions in Switzerland, Wiirtemberg, and Baden. The
neighboring Chrischona is a training school of German min
isters for emigrants to America.

§ 33. The Reformation in Grlarus. Tscliudi. Grlarectn.

VALENTIN TSCIIUDI : Chronik der Reformations/afire 2521-1533. ^fit Glossar
und Coinmentar von Dr. Joh. Strickler. Glarus, 1888 (pp. 258). Publ. in
the " Jahrbuch des historischen Vereins des Kantons Glarus," Heft XXIV.,
also separately issued. The first edition of Tschudi's Chronik (Beschryb
oder Erzellung, etc.) was published by Dr. J. J. Blumer, in vol. IX. of the
"Archiv fiir schweizerische Geschichte," 1853, pp. 332-447, but not in
the original spelling and without comments.

1 Malignant enemies spread the rumor that he committed suicide or was
fetched by the devil. See Hagenbach, p. 181. A similar rumor was started
about Luther's death, and revived in our clays by Majunke in Luther's Lebens-
ende, 4th ed. Mainz, 1890, but refuted by Kolde and Kawerau.

2 Hess (pp. 413-430) gives a chronological list of his works, which is sup
plemented by Herzog (II. 255 sqq.). Hagenbach's biography, p. 191 sqq.,
gives extracts from his sermons and catechetical writings.

§ 33. THE REFORMATION IN GLARUS. 117

BLUMER and HEER : Der Kanton Glarus, mstorisch, geoqraphisch und topo*
(/raphisch beschrieben. St. Gallen, 1846. DR. J. J. BLUMER : Die Refor
mation ini Lande Glarus. In the " Jahrbuch des historischen Vereins des
Kantons Glarus." Zurich and Glarus, 1873 and 1875 (Heft IX. ty— 48,
XI. 3-26). H. G. SULZBERGER : Die Reformation des Kant. Glarus und
des St. Gallischen Bezirks Werdenberg. Heiden, 1875 (pp. 44).

HEINRICH SCHREIBER : Heinrich Loriti Glareanus, gekronter Dichter, Philolog
und Mathematiker aus dem 16ten Jahrhundert. Freiburg, 1837. OTTO
FRIDOLIN FRITZSCIIE (Prof, of Church hist, in Zurich) : Glarean, sein
Leben und seine jSchriften. Frauenfeld, 1890 (pp. 136). Comp. also
GEIGER : Renaissance und Humanismus (1882), pp. 420-423, for a good
estimate of Glarean as a humanist.

The canton Glarus with the capital of the same name
occupies the narrow Liiiththal surrounded by high moun
tains, and borders on the territory of Protestant Zurich and
of Catholic Schwyz. It wavered for a good while between
the two opposing parties and tried to act as peacemaker.
Landammann Hans Aebli of Glarus, a friend of Zwingli and
an enemy of the foreign military service, prevented a bloody
collision of the Confederates in the first war of Cappel. This
is characteristic of the position of that canton.

Glarus was the scene of the first public labors of Zwingli
from 1506 to 1516.1 He gained great influence as a classical
scholar, popular preacher, and zealous patriot, but made also
enemies among the friends of the foreign military service,
the evils of which he had seen in the Italian campaigns. He
established a Latin school and educated the sons of the best
families, including the Tschudis, who traced their ancestry
back to the ninth century. Three of them are connected
with the Reformation, — JEgidius and Peter, and their cousin
Valentin.

vEgidius (Gilg) Tschudi, the most famous of this family,
the Herodotus of Switzerland (1505-1572), studied first with
Zwingli, then with Glarean at Basel and Paris, and occupied
important public positions, as delegate to the Diet at Ein-
siedeln (1529), as governor of Sargans, as Landammann of

1 See above, p. 23 sqq.

118 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

Glarus (1558), and as delegate of Switzerland to the Diet
of Augsburg (1559). He also served a short time as officer
in the French army. He remained true to the old faith, but
enjoyed the confidence of both parties by his moderation.
He expressed the highest esteem for Zwingli in a letter of
February, 1517.1 His History of Switzerland extends from
A.D. 1000 to 1470, and is the chief source of the period before
the Reformation. He did not invent, but he embellished
the romantic story of Tell and of Griitli, which has been
relegated by modern criticism to the realm of innocent
poetic fiction.2 He wrote also an impartial account of the
Cappeler War of 1531. 3

His elder brother, Peter, was a faithful follower of Zwingli,
but died early, at Coire, 1532.4

Valentin Tschudi also joined the Reformation, but showed
the same moderation to the Catholics as his cousin JEgidius

1 In Zwingli's Opera, VII. 20 sq. See above, p. 3.

2 The full title of his history is : ^EGIDII TSCHUDII gewesenen Landammanns
zu Glarus Chronicon Helveticum oder griindliche Beschreibung der merlcwurdigsten
Beqegnussen Wblicher Eidgenossenschaft, first printed in Basel, 1734, '36, in
2 large fol. vols. The continuation from 1470-1564 is preserved in Ms.
in the monastic library at Engelberg. His graphic narrative of Tell,
reproduced by John von Miiller and dramatized by Schiller, though dis
proved by modern criticism, will live in story and song. We may apply
to it Schiller's lines : —

" Alles iviederholt sich nur im Leben,
Ewig jung ist nur die Phantasie :
Was sich nie und nirgends hat begeben,
Das alleln veraltet nie."

See Jakob Vogel : Egld. Tschudi als Staatsmann und Cfeschichtschreiber. l\fit
dessen Bildniss. Zurich, 1856. Blumer : Tschudi ah Geschichtschreiber , 1874
("Jahrbuch des hist. Vereins des Kant. Glarus," pp. 81-100). Georg von
Wyss : Die eigenhdndige Handschrift der eidgenoss. C/tronik des Aeg. Tschudi
in der Stadt-Bibl. in Zurich ("Neujahrblatt " of the City Library of Zurich for
1889). Blumer and Von Wyss give the best estimate of Tschudi. Goethe says
that Tschudi's Swiss History and Aventin's Bavarian History are sufficient
to educate a useful public man without any other book.

3 Published from MS. in the "Helvetica," ed. by Jos. Ant. Balthasar.
vol. II. Aarau and Berne, 1826 (pp. 165 sqq.).

4 See his letters to Zwingli of Dec. 27, 1529, and Dec. 15, 1530, from Coire.
In Zwingli's Opera, VIII. 386 and 562.

§ 33. THE REFORMATION IN GLARUS. 119

showed to the Protestants. After studying several years
under Zwingli, he went, in 1516, with his two cousins to the
classical school of Glarean at Basel, and followed him to
Paris. From that city he wrote a Greek letter to Zwingli,
Nov. 15, 1520, which is still extant and shows his progress
in learning.1 On Zwingli's recommendation, he was elected
his successor as pastor at Glarus, and was installed by him,
Oct. 12, 1522. Zwingli told the congregation that he had
formerly taught them many Roman traditions, but begged
them now to adhere exclusively to the Word of God.

Valentin Tschudi adopted a middle way, and was supported
by his deacon, Jacob Heer. He pleased both parties by read
ing mass early in the morning for the old believers, and after
wards preaching an evangelical sermon for the Protestants.
He is the first example of a latitudinarian or comprehensive
broad-churchman. In 1530 he married, and ceased to read
mass, but continued to preach to both parties, and retained
the respect of Catholics by his culture and conciliatory
manner till his death, in 1555. He defended his moderation
and reserve in a long Latin letter to Zwingli, March 15, 1530.2
He says that the controversy arose from external ceremonies,
and did not touch the rock of faith, which Catholics and
Protestants professed alike, and that he deemed it his duty
to enjoin on his flock the advice of Paul to the Romans
(ch. 14), to exercise mutual forbearance, since each stands
or falls to the same Lord. The unity of the Spirit is the best
guide. He feared that by extreme measures, more harm was
done than good, and that the liberty gained may degenerate
into license, impiety, and contempt of authority. He begs
Zwingli to use his influence for the restoration of order and
peace, and signs himself " forever yours " (semper futurus
tuus). The same spirit of moderation characterizes his

1 There are nine of his letters in Zwingli's Opera, VII. and VIII.

2 In Strickler's edition of his Chronik, pp. 241-244, and in Zwingli's Opera,
VIII. 433-436.

120 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

Chronicle of the Reformation period, and it is difficult to
find out from this colorless and unimportant narrative, to
which of the two parties he belonged.

It is a remarkable fact that the influence of Tschudi's
example is felt to this day in the peaceful joint occupation
of the church at Glarus, where the sacrifice of the mass is
offered by a priest at the altar, and a sermon preached from
the pulpit by a Reformed pastor in the same morning.1

Another distinguished man of Glarus and friend of
Zwingli in the earlier part of his career, is Heinrich Loriti,
or Loreti, better known as Glareanus, after the humanistic
fashion of that age.2 He was born at Mollis, a small village
of that canton, in 1488, studied at Cologne and Basel, sided
with Reuchlin in the quarrel with the Dominican obscuran
tists,3 travelled extensively, was crowned as poet-laureate by
the Emperor Maximilian (1512), taught school and lectured
successively at Basel (1514), Paris (1517), again at Basel
(1522), and Freiburg (since 1529). He acquired great fame
as a philologist, poet, geographer, mathematician, musician,
and successful teacher. Erasmus called him, in a letter to
Zwingli (1514),4 the prince and champion of the Swiss
humanists, and in other letters he praised him as a man pure
and chaste in morals, amiable in society, well versed in his
tory, mathematics, and music, less in Greek, averse to the
subtleties of the schoolmen, bent upon learning Christ from
the fountain, and of extraordinary working power. He was
full of wit and quaint humor, but conceited, sanguine, irri
table, suspicious, and sarcastic. Glarean became acquainted

1 The old church of Glarus in which Zwingli and Tschudi preached,
burned down in 1861 ; but the same custom is continued in the new Roman
esque church, to the satisfaction of both parties. So I was informed by the
present pastor, Dr. Buss, in 1890.

2 From his native canton, Glarus (Glareana, also Glarona or Clarona ; for
the natives : Glareanus or Glaronensis*). For another derivation see Fritzsche,
I.e. p. 8.

3 He figures in the Epistolce Virorum Obscurorum as a terrible heretic.

4 Zwingli's Opera, VII. 10.

§ 33. THE REFORMATION IN GLARUS. 121

with Zwingli in 1510, and continued to correspond with him
till 1523.1 He bought books for him at Basel (e.g. the Aldine
editions of Lactantius and Tertullian) and sought a place
as canon in Zurich. In his last letter to him he called
him "the truly Christian theologian, the bishop of the Church
of Ziirich, his very great friend." 2 He read Luther's book
on the Babylonian Captivity three times with enthusiasm.
But when Erasmus broke both with Zwingli and Luther, he
withdrew from the Reformation, and even bitterly opposed
Zwingli and CEcolampadius.

He left Basel, Feb. 20, 1529, for Catholic Freiburg, and
was soon followed by Erasmus and Amerbach. Here he
labored as an esteemed professor of poetry and fruitful
author, until his death (1563). He was surrounded by
Swiss and German students. He corresponded, now, as con
fidentially with ^Egidius Tschudi as he had formerly corre
sponded with Zwingli, and co-operated with him in saving
a portion of his countrymen for the Catholic faith.3 He
gave free vent to his disgust with Protestantism, and yet
lamented the evils of the Roman Church, the veniality and
immorality of priests who cared more for Venus than for
Christ.4 A fearful charge. He received a Protestant stu
dent from Zurich with the rude words : " You are one of
those who carry the gospel in the mouth and the devil in
the heart " ; but when reminded that he did not show the
graces of the muses, he excused himself by his old age, and

1 We have from him twenty-eight letters to Zwingli from July 13, 1510,
to Feb. 16, 1523, printed in Zwingli's Opera, VII. and VIII., from the origi
nals in the State Archives of Zurich. Zwingli's letters to Glarean are lost, and
were probably destroyed after his rupture with the Reformer.

2 " Theo/ogo vere Christiana, Ecclesiie Tigurince episcopo, amico nostro summo."
Zwingli's Opera, VII. 274.

3 There are thirty-eight MS. letters of Glarean to Tschudi, from 1533 to
1561, in the City Library of Zurich ; another copy in the cantonal library of
Glarus.

4 Nov. 21, 1556: " Omnes clerici ad Venerem magis qnam ad Christum
inclinant."

122 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

treated the young man with the greatest civility. He became
a pessimist, and expected the speedy collapse of the world.
His friendship with Erasmus was continued with interrup
tions, and at last suffered shipwreck. He charged him once
with plagiarism, and Erasmus ignored him in his testament.1
It was a misfortune for both that they could not understand
the times, which had left them behind. The thirty works
of Glarean (twenty-two of them written in Freiburg) are
chiefly philological and musical, and have no bearing on
theology.2 They were nevertheless put on the Index by
Pope Paul IV., in 1559. He bitterly complained of this
injustice, caused by ignorance or intrigue, and did all he
could, with the aid of Tschudi, to have his name removed,
which was done after the seven Catholic cantons had testified
that Glarean was a good Christian.3

The Reformation progressed in Glarus at first without
much opposition. Friclolin Brunner, pastor at Mollis, wrote
to Zwingli, Jan. 15, 1527, that the Gospel was gaining
ground in all the churches of the canton. Johann Schindler
preached in Schwanden with great effect. The congrega
tions decided for the Reformed preachers, except in Niifels.
The reverses at Cappel in 1531 produced a reaction, and

1 But Dr. Bonifacius Amerbach, the chief heir, sent Glarean a silver cup
of Erasmus. See the Inventarium iiber die Hinterlassenschaft des Erasmus vom
22 Juli, 1536, p. 13. This curious document of nineteen pages was published
in 1889 by Dr. Ludwig Sieber, librarian of the University of Basel. He also
published Das Testament des Erasmus vom 22 Jan. 1,527, Basel, 1890.

2 The most important is his Dodekachordon (Basel, 1547), which makes an
epoch in the history of music. " His theory of the twelve church modes as
parallel to the ancient Greek modes, will assure for Glareanus a lasting place
among writers on the science of music." (Glover's Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, 1889, vol. I. 598.) Music was to him a sacred art. His editions
of Greek and Latin classics with critical notes, especially on Livy, are esteemed
and used by modern philologists. Fritzsche gives a full account of his works,
pp. 83-127.

3 His name was left out of the Indexes of the sixteenth century after that
of 1559, but strangely reappears again in the Index Matriti, 1667, p. 485.
Fritzsche, p. 74.

§ 34. THE REFORMATION IN ST. GALL. 123

caused some losses, but the Reformed Church retained the
majority of the population to this day, and with it the pre
ponderance of intelligence, enterprise, wealth, and prosperity,
although the numerical relation has recently changed in
favor of the Catholics, in consequence of the emigration of
Protestants to America, and the immigration of Roman-
Catholic laborers, who are attracted by the busy industries
(as is the case also in Zurich, Basel, and Geneva).1

§ 34. The Reformation in St. G-all, Toggenburg, and Appen-
zell. Watt and Kessler.

The sources and literature in the City Library of St. Gall which bears the
name of Vadian (Watt) and contains his MSS. and printed works.

I. The historical works of VADIANUS, especially his Chronicle of the Abbots of

St. Gall from 1200-1540, and his Diary from 1529-'33, edited by Dr. E.
Goetzinger, St. Gallen, 1875— '79, 3 vols. — Joachimi Vadiani Vita per Joan-
nem Kesslerum conscripta. Edited from the MS. by Dr. Goetzinger for the
Historical Society of St. Gall, 1865. — JOHANNES KESSLER'S Sabbata.
Chronik der Jahre 1523—1539. Herausgegeben von Dr. Ernst Goetzinger.
St. Gallen, 1866. In " Mittheilungen zur vaterlandischen Geschichte " of
the Historical Society of St. Gall, vols. V. and VI. The MS. of 532
pages, written in the Swiss dialect by Kessler's own hand, is preserved
in the Vadian library.

II. J. V. ARX (Rom. Cath., d. 1833) : Geschichte des Kant. St. Gallen. St.
Gallen, 1810-'13, 3 vols. — J. M. FELS : Denkmal Schweizerischer Reforma-
toren. St. Gallen, 1819. — JOH. FR. FRANZ: Die schwdrmerischen Grduel-
scenen der St. Galler Wiedertdufer zu Anfang der Reformation. Ebnat in
Toggenberg, 1824. — JOH. JAKOB BERNET : Johann Kessler, genannt Ahena-
rius, Burger und Reformator zu Sankt Gallen. St. Gallen, 1826. — K.
WEGELIN: Geschichte der Grafschaft Toggenburg. St. Gallen, 1830-'33,
2 Parts. — FR. WEIDMANN : Geschichte der Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallens.
1841. — A. NAF : Chronik oder Denkwiirdigkeiten der Stadt und Landschajl
St. Gallen. Zurich, 1851. — J. K. BUCKLER: Die Reformation im Lande
Appenzell. Trogen, 1860. In the " Appenzellische Jahrbiicher." — G.
JAK. BAUMGARTNER: Geschichte des Schweizerischen Freistaates und Kan-
tons St. Gallen. Zurich, 1868, 2 vols. — H. G. SULZBERGER: Geschichte
der Reformation in Toggenburg ; in St. Gallen; im Rheinthal ; in den eidge-
nossischen Herrschaften Sargans und Gaster, sowie in Rapper schwil ; in
Hohensax-Forsteck ; in Appenzell. Several pamphlets reprinted from the
"Appenzeller Sonntagsblatt," 1872 sqq.

1 In 1850 the Protestant population of Glarus numbered 26,281 ; the Cath
olic, 3,932. In 1888 the proportion was 25,935 to 7,790. See Fritzsche, p. 5&

j24 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

III. THEOD. PRESSEL: Joachim Vadian. In the ninth volume of the " Leber-
und ausgewiihlte Schriften der Vater und Begriinder der reformirten
Kirche." Elberfeld, 1861 (pp. 103). — RUD. STAHELIX : Die reformat*-
rische Wirksamkeit des St. Galler Ilnmanisten Vadian, in " Beitriige zur
vaterlandischen Geschichte," Basel, 1882, pp. 193-262 ; and his art. " Watt "
in Herzog2, XVI. (1885), pp. 603-068. Comp. also MEYER VON KNONAU,
" St. Gallen," in Herzog'2, IV. 725-735.

The Reformation in the northeastern parts of Switzerland
— St. Gall, Toggenburg, SchafThausen, Appenzell, Thurgau,
Aargau — followed the course of Ziirich, Berne, and Basel.
It is a variation of the same theme, on the one hand, in
its negative aspects : the destruction of the papal and epis
copal authority, the abolition of the mass and superstitious
rites and ceremonies, the breaking of images and relics as
symbols of idolatry, the dissolution of convents and confisca
tion of Church property, the marriage of priests, monks, and
nuns ; on the other hand, in its positive aspects : the intro
duction of a simpler and more spiritual worship with abun
dant preaching and instruction from the open Bible in the
vernacular, the restoration of the holy communion under
both kinds, as celebrated by the congregation, the direct
approach to Christ without priestly mediation, the raising
of the laity to the privileges of the general priesthood of
believers, care for lower and higher education. These changes
were made by the civil magistracy, which assumed the epis
copal authority and function, but acted on the initiative of
the clergy and with the consent of the majority of the peo
ple, which in democratic Switzerland was after all the sover
eign power. An Antistes was placed at the head of the
ministers as a sort of bishop or general superintendent.
Synods attended to legislation and administration. The
congregations called and supported their own pastors.

St. Gall — so-called from St. Gallus (Gilian), an Irish
missionary and pupil of Columban, who with several her
mits settled in the wild forest on the Steinach about 613 —
was a centre of Christianization and civilization in Alemannia

§ 34. THE REFORMATION IN ST. GALL. 125

and Eastern Switzerland. A monastery was founded about
720 by St. Othmar and became a royal abbey exempt from
episcopal jurisdiction, and very rich in revenues from landed
possessions in Switzerland, Swabia, and Lombardy, as well as
in manuscripts of classical and ecclesiastical learning. Church
poetry, music, architecture, sculpture, and painting nourished
there in the ninth and tenth centuries. Notker Balbulus, a
monk of St. Gall (d. c. 912), is the author of the sequences
or hymns in rhythmical prose (prosce^), and credited with
the mournful meditation on death ("Media vita in morte
sumus"~), which is still in use, but of later and uncertain
origin. With the increasing wealth of the abbey the disci
pline declined and worldliness set in. The missionary and
literary zeal died out. The bishop of Constance was jealous
of the independence and powers of the abbot. The city of
St. Gall grew in prosperity and longed for emancipation from
monastic control. The clergy needed as much reformation
as the monks. Many of them lived in open concubinage,
and few were able to make a sermon. The high festivals
were profaned by scurrilous popular amusements. The sale
of indulgences was carried on with impunity.

The Reformation was introduced in the city and district
of St. Gall by Joachim von Watt, a layman (1484-1551),
and John Kessler, a minister (1502-1574). The co-operation
of the laity and clergy is congenial to the spirit of Protestant
ism which emancipated the Church from hierarchical control.

Joachim von Watt, better known by his Latin name
Vadianus, excelled in his day as a humanist, poet, historian,
physician, statesman, and reformer. He was descended from
an old noble family, the son of a wealthy merchant, and
studied the humanities in the University of Vienna (1502), :

1 He arrived at Vienna in the autumn of 1502, shortly after Zwingli had
left the University. See Stahelin, I.e., who refers for confirmation to Egli,
Aschbach, and Horawitz. The usual opinion is that Vadian and Zwingli
(and Glareanus) studied together and formed their friendship at Vienna. So
also Pressel, I.e., p. 11.

126 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

which was then at the height of its prosperity under the
teaching of Celtes and Cuspinian, two famous humanists and
Latin poets. He acquired also a good knowledge of philos
ophy, theology, law, and medicine. After travelling through
Poland, Hungary, and Italy, he returned to Vienna and
taught classical literature and rhetoric. He was crowned
poet and orator by Maximilian (March 12, 1514), and elected
rector of the University in 1516. He published several clas
sical authors and Latin poems, orations, and essays. He
stood in friendly correspondence with Reuchlin, Hutten,
Hesse, Erasmus, and other leaders of the new learning, and
especially also with Zwingli.1

In 1518 Watt returned to St. Gall and practised as physi
cian till his death, but took at the same time an active part
in all public affairs of Church and State. He was repeatedly
elected burgomaster. He was a faithful co-worker of Zwingli
in the cause of reform. Zwingli called him " a physician of
body and soul of the city of St. Gall and the whole confed
eracy," and said, "I know no Swiss that equals him." Calvin
and Beza recognized in him " a man of rare piety and equally
rare learning." He called evangelical ministers and teachers
to St. Gall. He took a leading part in the religious disputa
tions at Zurich (1523-1525), and presided over the disputa
tion at Berne (1528).

St. Gall was the first city to follow the example of Zurich
under his lead. The images were removed from the churches
and publicly burnt in 1526 and 1528 ; only the organ and
the bones of St. Othmar (the first abbot) and Notker were
saved. An evangelical church order was introduced in 1527.
At the same time the Anabaptists endangered the Reforma
tion by strange excesses of fanaticism. Watt had no serious
objection to their doctrines, and was a friend and brother-in-

1 His published correspondence with Zwingli begins with a letter from
Vienna, April 9, 1511, and embraces four letters of Vadian, and thirty-eight
letters of Zwingli, in Zwingli's Opera, vols. VII. and VIII.

§ 34. THE REFORMATION IN ST. GALL. 127

law of Grebel, their leader, but he opposed them in the inter
est of peace and order.

The death of the abbot, March 21, 1529, furnished the
desired opportunity, at the advice of Zurich and Zwingli, to
abolish the abbey and to confiscate its rich domain, with the
consent of the majority of the citizens, but in utter disregard
of legal rights. This was a great mistake, and an act of
injustice.

The disaster of Cappel produced a reaction, and a portion
of the canton returned to the old church. A new abbot was
elected, Diethelm Blaurer ; he demanded the property of the
convent and sixty thousand guilders damages for what had
been destroyed and sold. The city had to yield. He held a
solemn entry. He attended the last session of the Council
of Trent and took a leading part in the counter-Reformation.

Watt showed, during this critical period, courage and mod
eration. He retained the confidence of his fellow-citizens,
who elected him nine times to the highest civil office. He
did what he could, in co-operation with Kessler and Bullinger,
to save and consolidate the Reformed Church during the
remaining years of his life. He was a portly, handsome, and
dignified man, and wrote a number of geographical, histori
cal, and theological works.1

John Kessler (Chessellius or Ahenarius), the son of a day-
laborer of St. Gall, studied theology at Basel, and Wittenberg.
He was one of the two students who had an interesting inter
view with Dr. Luther in the hotel of the Black Bear at Jena
in March, 1522, on his return as Knight George from the
Wartburg.2 It was the only friendly meeting of Luther with
the Swiss. Had he shown the same kindly feeling to Zwingli

1 Pressel, pp. 100-103, gives the titles of twenty-seven of his writings, mostly
Latin, published between 1510 and 1548.

2 Reported by him in the Swiss dialect with charming naivete in Sabbata,
pp. 145-151: "Wie mir M. Luther uff der strass [Beise~] gen Wittenberg begegnel
ist" Kessler's companion was John Spengler. See an account of the inter
view, in vol. VI. p. 385.

128 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

at Marburg, the cause of the Reformation would have been
the gainer.

Kessler supported himself by the trade of a saddler, and
preached in the city and surrounding villages. He was also
chief teacher of the Latin school. In 1571, a year before his
death, he was elected Antistes or head of the clergy of St.
Gall. He had a wife and eleven children, nine of whom
survived him. He was a pure, amiable, unselfish, and useful
man and promoter of evangelical religion. His portrait in
oil adorns the City Library of St. Gall.

The county of Toggenburg, the home of Zwingli, was
subject to the abbot of St. Gall since 1468, but gladly
received the Reformed preachers under the influence of
Zwingli, his relatives and friends. In 1524 the council
of the community enjoined upon the ministers to teach noth
ing but what they could prove from the sacred Scriptures.
The people resisted the interference of the abbot, the bishop
of Constance, and the canton Schwyz. In 1528 the Refor
mation was generally introduced in the towns of the district.
With the help of Zurich and Glarus, the Toggenburgers
bought their freedom from the abbot of St. Gall for fifteen
hundred guilders, in 1530 ; but were again subjected to his
authority in 1536. The county was incorporated in the
canton St. Gall in 1803. The majority of the people are
Protestants.

The canton Appenzell received its first Protestant preach
ers — John Schurtaimer of Teufen, John Dorig of Herisau,
and Walter Klarer of Hundwil — from the neighboring St.
Gall, through the influence of Watt. The Reformation was
legally ratified by a majority vote of the people, Aug. 26,
1523. The congregations emancipated themselves from the
jurisdiction of the abbot of St. Gall, and elected their own
pastors. The Anabaptist disturbances promoted the Roman-
Catholic reaction. The population is nearly equally divided,
— Innerrhoden, with the town of Appenzell, remained Catho-

§ 35. REFOBMATION IN SCHAFFHAUSEN. 129

lie ; Ausserrhoden, with Herisau, Trogen, and Gais, is Re
formed, and more industrious and prosperous.

The Reformation in Thurgau and Aargau presents no
features of special interest.1

§ 35. Reformation in Schaffhausen. Hofmeister.

MELCHIOR KIRCHOFER: Schaffhauserische Jahrbiicher von 1519-1539, oder
Geschichte der Reformation der Stadt und Landschaft Schaffhausen. Schaff-
hausen, 1819; 2d ed. Frauenfeld, 1838 (pp. 152). By the same: Sebas
tian Wagner, genannt Hofmeister. Zurich, 1808. — ED\V. lM-THUR3i und
HANS W. HARDER: Chronik der Stadt Schaffhausen (till 1790). Schaff-
hausen, 1844. — H. G. SULZBERGER : Geschichte der Reformation des Kant.
Schajf'hausen. Schaffhausen, 1876 (pp. 47).

Schaffhausen on the Rhine and the borders of Wiirttem-
berg and Baden followed the example of the neighboring
canton Zurich, under the lead of Sebastian Hofmeister
(1476-1533), a Franciscan monk and doctor and professor
of theology at Constance, where the bishop resided. He
addressed Zwingli, in 1520, as " the firm preacher of the
truth," and wished to become his helper in healing the dis
eases of the Church of Switzerland.2 He preached in his
native city of Schaffhausen against the errors and abuses of
Rome, and attended as delegate the religious disputations
at Zurich (January and October, 1523), which resulted in
favor of the Reformation.

He was aided by Sebastian Meyer, a Franciscan brother
who came from Berne, and by Ritter, a priest who had formerly
opposed him.

The Anabaptists appeared from Zurich with their radical
views. The community was thrown into disorder. The

1 Comp. Oelhafen, Chronik der Stadt Aarau, 1840; Sulzberger, Reformation
im Kanton Aargau, 1881 ; Pupikofer, Geschichte des Thurgau's, 1828-'30, 2 vols. ;
second ed. 1889-'90; Sulzberger, Die Reformation im Kanton Thurgau, 1872.

2 Hof meister's letters in Zwingli's Opera, VII. 146, 289 ; II. 166, 348. He
subscribes himself Sebastianus CEconomus seu Hofmeister. His last letter is
dated from Zofingen (1529), and very severe against Luther's writings on the
sacramental controversy.

130 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

magistracy held Hofmeister and Myer responsible, and ban
ished them from the canton. A reaction followed, but the
Reformation triumphed in 1529. The villages followed the
city. Some noble families remained true to the old faith,
and emigrated.

Schaffhausen was favored by a succession of able and
devoted ministers, and gave birth to some distinguished
historians.1

§ 36. The G-risons (Grraubiinden).

Colonel Landammann Theofil Sprecher a Bernegg at Maienfeld, Grau-
biinden, has a complete library of the history of the Grisons, including some
of the manuscripts of Campell and De Porta. I was permitted to use it for
this and the following two sections under his hospitable roof in June, 1890.
I have also examined the Kantons-Bibliothek of Graubiinden in the " Rsetische
Museum " at Coire, which is rich in the (Romanic) literature of the Grisons.

I. ULRICI CAMPELLI Rcetice Alpestris Topographica Descriptio, edited by
CHR. J. KIND, Basel (Schneider), 1884, pp. 448, and Historia Rcetica,
edited by PLAC. PLATTNER, Basel, torn. I., 1877, pp. 724, and torn. II.,
1890, pp. 781. These two works form vols. VII., VIII., and IX. of Quellen
zur Schiveizer-Geschichte, published by the General Historical Society of
Switzerland. They are the foundation for the topography and history
of the Grisons in the sixteenth century. Campell was Reformed pastor
at Siis in the Lower Engadin, and is called "the father of the historians
of Ratia." De Porta says that all historians of Ratia have ploughed with
his team. An abridged German translation from the Latin manuscripts
was published by Conradin von Mohr : ULR. CAMPELI/S Zwei Biicher
rdtischer Geschichte, Chur (Hitz), 1849 and 1851, 2 vols., pp. 236 and 566.

R. AMBROSIUS EICHHORN (Presbyter Congregationis S. Blasii, in the Black
Forest) : Episcopatus Curiensis in Rhietia sub metropoli Moguntina chrono-
logice et diplomatics illustratus. Typis San-Blasianis, 1797 (pp. 368, 4°).
To which is added Codex Probationum ad Episcopatum Curiensem e.x prcc-
cipuis documentis omnibus ferine ineditis collectus, 204 pp. The Reformation

1 Johannes von Miiller, called the German Tacitus (1752-1809) ; Melchior
Kirchhofer (1775-1853), who wrote valuable biographies of the minor Re
formers (Hofmeister, Haller, Myconius, and Farel), and the fifth volume of
Wirz's Helvetische Kirchengeschichte ; and Friedrich von Hurter (1787-1865),
the author of the best history of Pope Innocent III. (1834-'42, 4 vols.). Hurter
was formerly Antistes of the Reformed Church of Schaffhausen, but became
(partly by the study of the palmy period of the mediaeval hierarchy) a Roman
Catholic in 1844, and was appointed imperial counsellor and historiographer of
Austria, 1845.

§ 36. THE ORISONS. 131

period is described pp. 139 sqq. Eichhorn was a Roman Catholic priest,
and gives the documents relating to the episcopal see of Coire from
A.D. 766-1787. On "Zwinglianisms in Rsetia," see pp. 142, 146, 248. (I
examined a copy in the Episcopal Library at Coire.)

II. General works on the history of the Grisons by JOH. GULER (d. 1637),

FORTUNATUS SPRECHER A BfiRNEGG (d. 1647), FORTUNATUS JUVALTA

(d. 1654). TH. VON MOHR AND CONRADIN VON MOHR (or MOOR): Archiv
fur die Geschichte der Republik Graubiinden. Chur, 1848-'86. 9 vols.
A collection of historical works on Graubiinden, including the Codex
diplomaticus, Sammlung der Urkunden zur Geschichte Chur-Rhdtiens und der
Republik Graiibunden. The Codex was continued by JECKLIN, 1883-'86. —
CONRADIN VON MOOR : Bundnerische Geschichtschreiber und Chronisten.
Chur, 1862-77. 10 parts. By the same : Geschichte von Currdtien und
der Republ. Graubiinden. Chur, 1869. — JOH. ANDR. VON SPRECHER: Ge
schichte der Republik der drei Biinde im 18ten Jahrh. Chur, 1873-75.
2 vols. — A good popular summary: Graubiindnerische Geschichten erzdhlt
fur die reformirten Volksschulen (by P. KAISER). Chur, 1852 (pp. 281). —
Also J. K. VON TSCHARNER : Der Kanton Graubiinden, historisch, statistisch,
geographisch dargestellt. Chur, 1842.

The Reformation literature see in § 37.

III. On the history of Valtellina, Chiavenna, and Bormio, which until 1797
were under the jurisdiction of the Grisons, the chief writers are : —

FR. SAV. QUADRIO : Dissertazioni critico-storiche intorno alia Rezia di qua dalle
Alpi, oggi detta Valtellina. Milano, 1755. 2 vols., especially the second
vol., which treats la storia eccfesiastica. — ULYSSES VON SALIS : Staats-
Gesch. des Thais Veltlin und der Graftschaften Clef en und Worms. 1792.
4 vols. — LAVIZARI : Storia della Valtellina. Capolago, 1838. 2 vols. —
ROMEGIALLI : Storia della Valtellina e delle gia contee di Bormio e Chia
venna. Sondrio, 1834-'39. 4 vols. — WIEZEL : Veltliner Krieg, edited by
Hartmann. Strassburg, 1887.

The canton of the Grisons or Graubiinden1 was at the
time of the Reformation an independent democratic republic
in friendly alliance with the Swiss Confederacy, and contin
ued independent till 1803, when it was incorporated as a
canton. Its history had little influence upon other countries,
but reflects the larger conflicts of Switzerland with some
original features. Among these are the Romanic and Italian
conquests of Protestantism, and the early recognition of the
principle of religious liberty. Each congregation was allowed
to choose between the two contending churches according to

1 Respublica Grisonum ; / Grigioni ; Les Grisons.

132 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

the will of the majority, and thus civil and religious war was
prevented, at least during the sixteenth century.1

Graubiinden is, in nature as well as in history, a Switzer
land in miniature. It is situated in the extreme south-east of
the republic, between Austria and Italy, and covers the prin
cipal part of the old Roman province of Ratia.2 It forms a
wall between the north and the south, and yet combines both
with a network of mountains and valleys from the regions
of the eternal snow to the sunny plains of the vine, the fig,
and the lemon. In territorial extent it is the largest canton,
and equal to any in variety and beauty of scenery and healthy
climate. It is the fatherland of the Rhine and the Inn.
The Engadin is the highest inhabited valley of Switzerland,
and unsurpassed for a combination of attractions for admirers
of nature and seekers of health. It boasts of the healthiest
climate with nine months of dry, bracing cold and three
months of delightfully cool weather.

The inhabitants are descended from three nationalities,
speak three languages, — German, Italian, and Romansh
(Romanic), — and preserve many peculiarities of earlier
ages. The German language prevails in Coire, along the
Rhine, and in the Prattigau, and is purer than in the other
cantons. The Italian is spoken to the south of the Alps
in the valleys of Poschiavo and Bregaglia (as also in the
neighboring canton Ticino). The Romansh language is a

1 The Grisons are ignored or neglected in general Church histories. Even
Hagenbach, who was a Swiss, devotes less than two pages to them (Geschichte
der Reformation, p. 366, 5th ed. by Nippold, 1887). A fuller account (the only
good one in English) is given by Dr. McCrie, a Scotch Presbyterian, in his
History of the Reformation in Italy, ch. VI. The increasing travel of English
and American tourists to that country, especially to the Engadin, gives wider
interest to its history, and may justify the space here given to it.

2 Rietia or Rhcrtia, a net, is derived from Rhwtus, the mythical chief of the
oldest immigrants from Etruria, or from the Celtic rhin, Rhine, river, and sur
vives in the names Realta, fihaziins, and Reambs, i.e. Rcetia alta, una, and ampla.
It was conquered under Augustus by Drusus, 14 B.C., and ruled by a governor
at Coire or Curia Rhwtorum till c. 400. The ivy-clad tower of the episcopal
palace of Coire is of Roman origin, and is called Marscel, i.e. Mars in oculis.

§ 36. THE ORISONS. 133

remarkable relic of prehistoric times, an independent sister
of the Italian, and is spoken in the Upper and Lower Enga-
din, the Miinster valley, and the Oberland. It has a con
siderable literature, mostly religious, which attracts the
attention of comparative philologists.1

The Grisonians (Graubiindtner) are a sober, industrious,
and heroic race, and have maintained their independence
against the armies of Spain, Austria, and France. They
have a natural need and inclination to emigrate to richer
countries in pursuit of fortune, and to return again to their
mountain homes. They are found in all the capitals of
Europe and America as merchants, hotel keepers, confec
tioners, teachers, and soldiers.

The institutions of the canton are thoroughly democratic
and exemplify the good and evil effects of popular sov
ereignty.2 " Next to God and the sun," says an old Enga-
din proverb, "the poorest inhabitant is the chief magistrate."
There are indeed to this day in the Grisons many noble
families, descended in part from mediaeval robber-chiefs and
despots whose ruined castles still look down from rocks and
cliffs, and in greater part from distinguished officers and
diplomatists in foreign service ; but they have no more influ
ence than their personal merits and prestige warrant. In
official relations and transactions the titles of nobility are
forbidden.3

1 The Romansh language (to distinguish it from other Romanic languages)
has two dialects, the Ladin of the Engadin, the Albula, and Miinster valleys,
and the Romansh of the Oberland, Ilanz, Disentis, Oberhalbstein, etc. It is
spoken by about 37,000 inhabitants. The whole population of the canton in
1890 was 94,879, — 53,168 Protestants and 41,711 Roman Catholics. The
largest number of Romansh books is in the Cantonal Library at Coire, and
the Bo'hmer collection in the University Library of Strassburg. Colonel von
Sprecher at Maienfeld also has about four hundred volumes.

2 "In no nation, ancient or modern," says Dr. McCrie (p. 293), "have
the principles of democracy been carried to such extent as in the Orison
Republic."

3 The best known and most respectable noble families are the Salis (one
of them a distinguished lyric poet), Planta, Bavier, Sprecher, Albertini,

134 THE SWISS INFORMATION.

Let us briefly survey the secular history before we proceed
to the Reformation.

The Grisons were formed of three loosely connected con
federacies or leagues, that is, voluntary associations of free
men, who, during the fifteenth century, after the example of
their Swiss neighbors, associated for mutual protection and
defence against domestic and foreign tyrants.1 These three
leagues united in 1471 at Vatzerol in an eternal covenant,
which was renewed in 1524, promising to each other by an
oath mutual assistance in peace and war. The three confed
eracies sent delegates to the Diet which met alternately at
Coire, Ilanz, and Davos.

At the close of the fifteenth century two leagues of the
Grisons entered into a defensive alliance with the seven old
cantons of Switzerland. The third league followed the
example.2

In the beginning of the sixteenth century the Grisonians

Tscharner, Juvalta, Mohr, Buol. See Sammlung rhdtischer Geschlechter. Chur,
1847.

1 The three confederacies or Biinde (whence the canton has its name
Graubiinden) are: —

1) The Gotteshausbund (Lia de Ca De'}, the League of the House of God. It
dates from 1390, and had its centre since 1419 at Coire, the capital of the canton.

2) The Obere Bund or Graue Bund (Lia Grischa}, the Gray League (hence
the term Graue, Grisons, Grays). It was founded under an elm tree at Truns
in 1424, and gathered around the abbey of Disentis.

3) The Zehnqerichtenbund (Lia dellas desch dretturas^), the League of the Ten
Jurisdictions. It originated in 1436 at Davos and in the valley of Priittigau.

After the middle of the fifteenth century these leagues appear in the docu
ments under the name of the Gemeine drei Biinde or Freistaat der drei Biinde
in Hohenrhdtien. A modern historian says: " Frei und selbstherrlich sind vide
Volker geworden, aber wenige auf so rechtliche und ruhige Weise als das Biindner
Volk." See the documents in Tschudi, I. 593 ; II. 153 ; and compare Miiller,
Schweizergeschichte, III. 283, 394, and Bluntschli, Geschichte des schweizerischen
Bnndesrechts, I. 196 sqq. (2d ed. Stuttgart, 1875).

2 The alliance was formed with the two older leagues separately in 1497
and 1498. The league of the Ten Jurisdictions was not admitted by the
seven cantons because the house of Austria had possessions there ; but in
1590 it concluded an eternal agreement with Zurich and Glarus, in 1600
with Wallis, and in 1602 with Bern. See Bluntschli, I.e. I. 198 sq. and the
documents from the Archives of Zurich in vol. II. 99-107.

§ 37. THE REFORMATION IN THE GRISONS. 135

acquired by conquest from the duchy of Milan several
beautiful and fertile districts south of the Alps adjoining
the Milanese and Venetian territories, namely, the Valtel-
lina and the counties of Bormio (Worms) and Chiavenna
(Cleven), and annexed them as dependencies ruled by bai
liffs. It would have been wiser to have received them as a
fourth league with equal rights and privileges. These Ital
ian possessions involved the Orisons in the conflict between
Austria and Spain on the one hand, which desired to keep
them an open pass, and between France and Venice on the
other, which wanted them closed against their political rivals.
Hence the Valtellina has been called the Helena of a new
Trojan War. Graubiinden was invaded during the Thirty
Years' War by Austro-Spanish and French armies. After
varied fortunes, the Italian provinces Avere lost to Graubiin
den through Napoleon, who, by a stroke of the pen, Oct. 10,
1797, annexed the Valtellina, Bormio, and Chiavenna to the
new Cisalpine Republic. The Congress of Vienna trans
ferred them to Austria in 1814, and since 1859 they belong
to the united Kingdom of Italy.

§ 37. The Reformation in the Crrisons. Comander. Crallicius.

Campell.

The work of CAMPELL quoted in § 36.

BARTIIOLOMAUS ANHORN : Heilige Wiedergeburt der evang. Kirche in den gemei-
nen drei Biindten der freien hohen Rhdtien, oder Beschreibung Hirer Reformation
und Religionsverbesserung, etc. Brugg, 1680 (pp. 246). A new ed. St.
Gallen, 1860 (pp. 144, 8°). By the same: Piintner Aufruhr im Jahr 1607,
ed. from MSS. by Conradin von Mohr, Chur, 1862; and his Graw-Puntner
\_Graubiindner]- Krieg, 1603-1629, ed. by Conr. von Mohr, Chur, 1873.

* PETRUS DOMIXICUS Rosius DE POUTA (Reformed minister at Scamff, or
Scanfs, in the Upper Engadin) : Ilistoria Reformat ionis Ecdesiarum Rati-
carum, ex r/enuinis fontibus et adhuc inaximam partem numquam impressis sine
partiu.ni studio deducta, etc. Curia? Rastorum. Tom. I., 1771 (pp. 658, 4°) ;
Tom. II., 1777 (pp. 668) ; Tom. III., Como, 1786. Comes down to 1642.
Next to Campell, the standard authority and chief source of later works.

LEONHARD TRUOG (Reformed pastor at Thusis) : Re formations- Geschichte von
Graubiinden aus zuverldssigen Quellen sorgfultig geschb'pft. Denkmal der drit-

136 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

ten Sekuiar-JubeJfeier der B'dndnerischen Reformation. Chur (Otto), 1819
(pp. 132). — Reformationsbiichlein. Ein Denkmal des im Jahr 1819 in der
Stadt Chur gefeierten Jubelfestes. Chur (Otto), 1819 (pp. 304).
* CHRISTIAN IMMANUEL KIND (Pfarrer und Cancellarius der evang. rhatischen
Synode, afterward Staats-Archivarius of the Grisons, d. May 23, 1884) :
Die Reformation in den Bisthiimern Chur und Como. Dargestellt nach den
besten dlteren und neueren Hulfsmitteln. Chur, 1858 (Grubenmann), pp. 310,
8°. A popular account based on a careful study of the sources. By the
same: Die Stadt Char in Hirer dltesten Geschichte, Chur, 1859; Philipp Gal-
licius, 1868; Georg Jenatsch, in "Allg. Deutsche Biogr.," Bd. XIII.—
GEORG LEONHARDI (pastor in Brusio, Poschiavo) : Philipp Gallicius, Refor-
mator Graubiindens. Bern, 1865 (pp. 103). The same also in Romansch.
— H. G. SULZBERGER (in Sevelen, St. Gallen, d. 1888) : Geschichte der
Reformation im Kanton Graubunden. Chur, 1880. pp. 90 (revised by Kind).
— FLORIAN PEER : L'e'glise de Rhe'tie auXVIme et XVIIme siecles. Geneve,
1888. — HEROLD: J. Komander, in Meili's Zeitschrift, Zurich, 1891.

The Christianization of the Grisons is traced back by tra
dition to St. Lucius, a royal prince of Britain, and Emerita,
his sister, in the latter part of the second century.1 A chapel
on the mountain above Coire perpetuates his memory. A
bishop of Coire (Asimo) appears first in the year 452, as sign
ing by proxy the creed of Chalcedon.2 The bishops of Coire
acquired great possessions and became temporal princes.3
The whole country of the Grisons stood under the jurisdic
tion of the bishops of Coire and Como.

The state of religion and the need of a reformation were
the same as in the other cantons of Switzerland.

The first impulse to the Reformation came from Zurich

1 He is identified, in the tradition of Wales, with King Lucius who intro
duced Christianity into Britain and built the first church at Llandaff in
180. See Alois Liitolf, Die Glaubensboten der Schweiz vor St. Cxllus, Luzern,
1871, pp. 95-125. He gives from MSS. the oldest Vita S. Lucii Confessoris
(pp. 115-121).

2 S. Asimo was not himself at Chalcedon, 450, but authorized Abundan-
tius, bishop of Como, to give his assent to the Chalcedon Christology at a
council held at Milan in 452, as appears from the following document : " Ego
Abundantius episcopus ecclesue Comensis in omnia supra scripta pro me ac PRO

ABSENTS SANCTO FRATRE MEO, AsiMONE, EPISCOPO ECCLESI^ CURIENSIS PRI
MES RHJETIJE, subscripsi, anathema dicens his qui de incarnationis Dominicca
sacramento impie senserunt." Quoted by Eichhorn, Lc. pp. 1 and 2.

3 Frederick Barbarossa gave to the bishop the title princeps, about 1170.

§ 37. THE REFORMATION IN THE ORISONS. 137

with which Coire had close connections. Zwingli sent an
address to the "three confederacies in Rhatia," expressing
a special interest in them as a former subject of the bishop
of Coire, exhorting them to reform the Church in alliance
with Zurich, and recommending to them his friend Coman-
der (Jan. 16, 1525). : Several of his pupils preached in
Flasch, Malans, Maienfeld, Coire, and other places as early
as 1524. After his death Bullinger showed the same inter
est in the Grisons. The Reformation passed through the
usual difficulties first with the Church of Rome, then with
Anabaptists, Unitarians, and the followers of the mystical
Schwenkfeld, all of whom found their way into that remote
corner of the world. One of the leading Anabaptists of
Zurich, Georg Blaurock, was an ex-monk of Coire, and on
account of his eloquence called " the mighty Jorg," or " the
second Paul." He was expelled from Zurich, and burnt by
the Catholics in the Tyrol (1529).

The Reformers abolished the indulgences, the sacrifice of
the mass, the worship of images, sacerdotal celibacy and con
cubinage, and a number of unscriptural and superstitious
ceremonies, and introduced instead the Bible and Bible
preaching in church and school, the holy communion in
both kinds, clerical family life, and a simple evangelical
piety, animated by an active faith in Christ as the only
Saviour and Mediator. Where that faith is wanting the ser
vice in the barren churches is jejune and chilly.

The chief Reformers of the Grisons were Comander, Galli-
cius, Campell, and Vergerius, and next to them Alexander
Salandronius (Salzmann), Blasius, and John Travers. The
last was a learned and influential layman of the Engadin.
Comander labored in the German, Gallicius and Campell
in the Romansh, Vergerius in the Italian sections of the

1 The MS. of this exhortation is in the Archives of Zurich and was first
printed in Job. Jak. Simler's Sammlung alter und neuer Urkunden zur Beleucli-
tung der Kirchengeschichte (1759), vol. I. 108-114.

138 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

Grisons. They were Zwinglians in theology,1 and intro
duced the changes of Zurich and Basel. Though occupy
ing only a second or third rank among the Reformers, they
were the right men in the right places, faithful, self-denying
workers in a poor country, among an honest, industrious,
liberty-loving but parsimonious people. With small means
they accomplished great and permanent results.

JOHN COMAXDER (DORFMANN), formerly a Roman priest,
of unknown antecedents, preached the Reformed doctrines in
the church of St. Martin at Coire from 1524. He learned
Hebrew in later years, to the injury of his eyes, that he
might read the Old Testament in the original. Zwingli
sent him Bibles and commentaries. The citizens protected
him against violence and accompanied him to and from
church. The bishop of Coire arraigned him for heresy
before the Diet of the three confederacies in 1525.

The Diet, in spite of the remonstrance of the bishop,
ordered a public disputation at Ilanz, the first town on the
Rhine. The disputation was begun on Sunday after Epiph
any, Jan. 7, 1526, under the presidency of the civil authori
ties, and lasted several days. It resembled the disputations
of Zurich, and ended in a substantial victory of the Refor
mation. The conservative party was represented by the
Episcopal Vicar, the abbot of St. Lucius, the deans, and a
few priests and monks ; the progressive party, by several
young preachers, Comander, Gallicius, Blasius, Pontisella,
Fabricius, and Hartmann. Sebastian Hofmeister of Scliaff-
hausen was present as a listener, and wrote an account of
the speeches.2

Comander composed for the occasion eighteen theses, — an

1 With the exception of Vergerius, who vacillated between Calvinism and
Lutheranism. See below, p. 154 (§ 38).

2 His report and Comander's conclusions are printed in Fiisslin's Beitrage
zur Kirchen- und Reformationsgesch. des Schweitzerlandes, 1741, vol. I. 337-382.
A fuller account is given by Campell in his Rdtische Geschichte, II. 287-308
(Mohr's German ed.).

§ 37. THE REFORMATION IN THE GRISONS. 139

abridgment of the sixty-seven conclusions of Zwingli. The
first thesis was : " The Christian Church is born of the Word
of God and should abide in it, and not listen to the voice
of a stranger" (John 10:4, 5). He defended this proposi
tion with a wealth of biblical arguments which the cham
pions of Rome were not able to refute. There was also
some debate about the rock-passage in Matt. 16 : 18, the
mass, purgatory, and sacerdotal celibacy. The Catholics
brought the disputation to an abrupt close.

In the summer of the same year (June 26, 1526), the Diet
of Ilanz proclaimed religious freedom, or the right of all per
sons in the Grisons, of both sexes, and of whatever condition
or rank, to choose between the Catholic and the Reformed
religion. Heretics, who after due admonition adhered to
their error, were excluded and subjected to banishment (but
not to death). This remarkable statute was in advance of
the intolerance of the times, and forms the charter of relig
ious freedom in the Grisons.1

The Diet of Ilanz ordered the ministers to preach nothing

1 Campell, II. 309 : " Die Disputation [of Ilanz] blieb nicht okne alle Frucht.
Sie hatte wenigstens die Folge, dass ein Gesetz erlassen wurde, iconach es in den
drei Bilnden Jedermann, wess Standes oder Geschlechts er duch war, freigestellt
wurde, nach Gutdunken zu einer der beiden Confessionem, der katholischen oder
evangelischen, sich zu bekennen und an ilir festzuhalten. Hiebei wurde, unter An-
drohung einer angeinessenen Strafe, Jedem streng untersagt, irgend Jemanden uni
seines Glaubens willen zu schmdhen oder, sei es ojfentlich oder heimlich, zu verfolgen,
wie diess von der andern Partei schon oft genug geschehen war. Bei dieser
Gelegenheit wurde em altes Landesgesetz den Geistlichen aufs Neue eingeschdrft,
wonach selbe durchaus keine andere, als die in der h. Schrift enthaltene Lehre de»i
Volke vortragen sollten." [Then follows a list of the leading statesmen, John
Travers, John Guler, etc., who contributed to this result.] "Mit dem ndmlichen
Gesetz iiber freie Ausiibung des evangelischen Glaubens wurde die ganze Kezerei
der Wiedertaufe streng untersagt und alle ihre Anhdnger mit Verbannung bedroht.
Die strenge Ueberwachung der erstern dieser zwei Verordnungen hatte in Bezug
auf ojfentliche Ruhe und Frieden zwischen beiden Confessionen dusserst wohlthdtige
Folgen, indem beide Theile sich lange Zeit hindurch der grb'ssten Mdssigung beflissen,
bis erst in den letzten Jahren bei den katholischen Geistlichen sich abermals eine
feindselige Stimmunq gegen die evangelischen Prediger in Schmahungen aller Art
kund gab, woriiber mannigfache K lag en vor detn jBeitag laut wurden." — Comp.
Bullinger, I. 315; De Porta, I. 146.

140 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

but what they could prove from the Scriptures, and to give
themselves diligently to the study of the same. The politi
cal authority of the bishop of Coire was curtailed, appeals
to him from the civil jurisdiction were forbidden, and the
parishes were empowered to elect and to dismiss their own
priests or pastors.1

Thus the episcopal monarchy was abolished and congrega
tional independency introduced, but without the distinction
made by the English and American Congregationalists be
tween the church proper, or the body of converted believers,
and the congregation of hearers or mere nominal Christians.

This legislation was brought about by the aid of liberal
Catholic laymen, such as John Travers and John Guler, who
at that time had not yet joined the Reformed party. The
strict Catholics were dissatisfied, but had to submit. In 1553
the Pope sent a delegate to Coire and demanded the intro
duction of the Inquisition; but Comander, Bullinger, and
the French ambassador defeated the attempt.

Comander, aided by his younger colleague, Blasius, and
afterwards by Gallicius, continued to maintain the Reformed
faith against Papists, Anabaptists, and also against foreign
pensioners who had their headquarters at Coire, and who
punished him for his opposition by a reduction of his scanty
salary of one hundred and twenty guilders. He was at
times tempted to resign, but Bullinger urged him to hold
on.2 lie stood at the head of the Reformed synod till his
death in 1557.

He was succeeded by Fabricius, who died of the pestilence
in 1566.

PHILIP GALLICIUS (SALUZ) developed a more extensive
activity. He is the Reformer of the Engadin, but labored also

1 Campell, II. 310 sqq., gives the principal of the Twenty Articles of the
Diet of Ilanz.

2 See his letters to Bullinger and Vadian in De Porta, I. 67, 179 sqq.;
II. 278.

§ 37. THE REFORMATION IN THE ORISONS. 141

as pastor and evangelist in Domleschg, Langwies, and Coire.
He was born on the eastern frontier of Graubiinden in 1504,
and began to preach already in 1520. He had an irresistible
eloquence and power of persuasion. When he spoke in
Romansh, the people flocked from every direction to hear
him. He was the chief speaker at two disputations in Siis,
a town of the Lower Engadin, against the Papists (1537),
and against the Anabaptists (1544). l He also introduced
the Reformation in Zuz in the Lower Engadin, 1554, with
the aid of JOHN TRAVERS, a distinguished patriot, states
man, soldier, and lay-preacher, who was called " the steel-
clad knight in the service of the Lord."

Gallicius suffered much persecution and poverty, but
remained gentle, patient, and faithful to the end. When
preaching in the Domleschg he had not even bread to feed
his large family, and lived for weeks on vegetables and salt.
And yet he educated a son for the ministry at Basel, and
dissuaded him from accepting a lucrative offer in another
calling. He also did as much as he could for the Italian
refugees. He died of the pestilence with his wife and three
sons at Coire, 1566.

He translated the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and
the Ten Commandments, and several chapters of the Bible,
into the Romansh language, and thus laid the foundation of
the Romansh literature. He also wrote a catechism and a
Latin grammar, which were printed at Coire. He prepared
the Confession of Rsetia, in 1552, which was afterwards
superseded by the Confession of Bullinger in 1566.

ULRICH CAMPELL (b. c. 1510, d. 1582) was pastor at
Coire and at Siis, and, next to Gallicius, the chief reformer
of the Engadin. He is also the first historian of Rretia and
one of the founders of the religious literature in Romanic

Ra3tia. His history is written in good Latin, and based upon
personal observation, the accounts of the ancient Romans,

1 A full account of the first disputation in Campell, II. 342-366.

142 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

the researches of Tschudi, and communications of Bullinger
and Vadian. It begins A.D. 100 and ends about 1582.

The Romansh literature was first cultivated during the
Reformation.1 Gallicius, Campell, and Biveroni (Bifrun) are
the founders of it. Campell prepared a metrical translation
of the Psalter, with original hymns and a catechism (1562).
Jacob Biveroni, a lawyer of Samaden, published a transla
tion of Comander's Catechism, which was printed at Pos-
chiavo, 1552, and (with the aid of Gallicius and Campell)
the entire New Testament, which appeared first in 1560 at
Basel, and became the chief agency in promoting the evan
gelical faith in those regions. The people, who knew only
the Romansh language, says a contemporary, "were amazed
like the Israelites of old at the sight of the manna."

The result of the labors of the Reformers and their succes
sors in Graubiinden was the firm establishment of an evan
gelical church which numbered nearly two-thirds of the
population ; while one-third remained Roman Catholic. This
numerical relation has substantially remained to this day with
some change in favor of Rome, though not by conversion,
but by emigration and immigration. The two churches live
peacefully together. The question of religion was decided
in each community by a majority vote, like any political or
local question. The principle of economy often gave the
decision either for the retention of the Roman priest, or the
choice of a Reformed preacher.2 Some stingy congregations
remained vacant to get rid of all obligations, or hired now a
priest, now a preacher for a short season. Gallicius com
plained to Bullinger about this independence which favored

1 "Erst die Reformation," says Leonhardi (Philipp Gallicius, p. 87), "hat
eine rhato-romanische Literatur geschajfen. Die MGnche und Priester behaupteten,
der Engadiner Dialect sei so verdorben, dass er kernes schriftlichen Ausdruckes
fdhig sei."

2 The same regard for economy inclines at this day some Roman Catholic
congregations to prefer a Capuchin monk to a secular priest. So I was in
formed by the Archivarius of the bishop of Coire in June, 1890.

§ 37. THE REFORMATION IN THE GRISONS. 143

license under the name of liberty. Not unfrequently con
gregations are deceived by foreign adventurers who impose
themselves upon them as pastors.

The democratic autonomy explains the curious phenome
non of the mixture of religion in the Grisons. The traveller
may pass in a few hours through a succession of villages and
churches of different creeds. At Coire the city itself is
Reformed, and the Catholics with their bishop form a sepa
rate town on a hill, called the Court (of the bishop).

There is in Graubiinden neither a State church nor a free
church, but a people's church.1 Every citizen is baptized,
confirmed, and a church member. Every congregation is
sovereign, and elects and supports its own pastor. In 1537
a synod was constituted, which meets annually in' the month
of June. It consists of all the ministers and three repre
sentatives of the government, and attends to the examina
tion and ordination of candidates, and the usual business
of administration. The civil government watches over the
preservation of the church property, and prevents a collision
of ecclesiastical and civil legislation, bat the administration
of church property is in the hands of the local congregations
or parishes. The Second Helvetic Confession of Bullinger
was formally accepted as the creed of the Church in 1566,,
but has latterly gone out of use. Ministers are only required
to teach the doctrines of the Bible in general conformity
to the teaching of the Reformed Church. Pastors are at
liberty to use any catechism they please. The cultus is very
simple, and the churches are devoid of all ornament. Many
pious customs prevail among the people. A Protestant col
lege was opened at Coire in the year 1542 with Pon-
tisella, a native of Bregaglia, as first rector, who had been
gratuitously educated at Zurich by the aid of Bullinger.
With the college was connected a theological seminary for

1 A Volkskircfie or Geiaeindekirche, which embraces the whole civil com
munity.

144 THE SWISS KEFORMATION.

the training of ministers. This was abolished in 1843,1 and
its funds were converted into scholarships for candidates,
who now pursue their studies at Basel and Zurich or in
German universities. In 1850 the Reformed college at Coire

and the Catholic college of St. Lucius have been consolidated
into one institution (Cantons sehule) located on a hill above
Coire, near the episcopal palace.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Re
formed clergy were orthodox in the sense of moderate Calvin
ism ; in the eighteenth century Pietism and the Moravian
community exerted a wholesome influence 011 the revival of
spiritual life.2 In the present century about one-half of the
clergy have been brought up under the influence of German
Rationalism, and preach Christian morality without super
natural dogmas and miracles.

The Protestant movement in the Italian valleys of the
Orisons began in the middle of the sixteenth century, but
may as well be anticipated here.

§ 38. The Reformation in the Italian Valleys of the Grrisons.

Vergerio.

I. P. DOM. Rosius DE PORTA : Dissertatio historico-ecclesiastica qua ecclesiarum
colloquio Vallis Prcegallice et Comitatiis Clavennce olim comprehensarum Re-
formatio et status . . . exponilur. Curia?, 1787 (pp. 56, 4°). His Historia
Reformations Eccles. Rhceticarum, Bk. II. ch. v. pp. 139-179 (on Vergerio). —
DAN. GERDES (a learned Reformed historian, 1698-1765): Specimen Italia
Reformats. L. Batav. 17(55. — * THOMAS McCRiE (1772-1835, author of the
Life of John Knox, etc.): History of the Progress and Suppression of the Refor
mation in Italy. Edinburgh, 1827. 2d ed. 1833. Republished by the Pres
byterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia, 1842. Ch. VI., pp. 291 sqq.,
treats of the foreign Italian churches and the Reformation in the Orisons.
— F. TRECHSEL: Die protest. Antitrinitarier, Heidelberg, 1844, vol. II. 64

1 The last professors of theology were Antistes Kind (my pastor), and Dr.
Schirks, both able and pious men.

2 On this movement see Munz, Die Briidergemeinde in Biinden, in " Der
Kirchenfreund," Basel, Nos. 19-21, 1886. Johann Baptist von Albertini
(d. 1831), one of the bishops and hymnists of the Moravians, and a friend
of Schleiermacher, descended from a Biinden family.

§ 38. THE REFORMATION IN THE ITALIAN VALLEYS. 145

sqq.) — G. LEONHARDI : Hitter Johannes Guler von Weineck, Lebensbild ernes
Rhdtiers aus dem 17ten Jahrh. Bern, 1863. By the same : Puschlaver Morel.
Veltiner Mord. Die Ausrottung des Protestantismus im Misoxerthal. In the
Zeitschrift " der Wahre Protestant," Basel, 1852-'54. — B. REBER: Georg
Jenatsch, Graubilndens Pfarrer und Held wdhrend des dreissigjdhrigen Kriegs.
In the "Beitiige zur vaterliindischen Geschichte," Basel, 1860. — E. LECH-
NER : Das Thai Bergell (Bregaglia) in Graubunden, Natur, Sagen, Geschichte,
Volk, Sprache, etc. Leipzig, 1865 (pp. 140). — Y. F. FETZ (Rom. Cath.) :
Geschichte der kirchenpolitischen Wirren im Freistaat der drei Biinde vom
An fang des 17ten Jahrh. bis auf die Gegenwart. Chur, 1875 (pp. 367). —
* KARL BENRATH: Bernardino Ochino ron Siena. Leipzig, 1875 (Eng-
lisli translation with preface by William Arthur, London, 1876). Comp.
his r^fber die Quellen der italienischen Reformationsgeschichte. Bonn, 1876.
— *JoH. KASPAR MORIKOFER : Geschichte der evangelischen FluchtUnge in
der Schweiz. Zurich, 1876. — JOHN STOUGHTON : Footprints of Italian Re
formers. London, 1881 (pp. 235, 267 sqq.). — EM. COMB A (professor of
church history in the Waldensian Theological College at Florence) : Storia
ddla Riforma in Italia. Firenze, 1881 (only 1 vol. so far). Biblioteca della
Riforma Italiana Sec. XVI. Firenze, 1883-'86. 6 vols. Visita ai Grigioni
Riformati Italiani. Firenze, 1885. Vera Narrazione del Massacro di Valtellina.
Zurich, 1021. Republished in Florence, 1886. Comp. literature on p. 131.

II. The Vergerius literature. The works of VERGERIUS, Latin and Italian,
are very rare. Niceron gives a list of fifty-five, Sixt (pp. 595-601) of
eighty-nine. He began a collection of his Opera adversus Papatum, of
which only the first volume has appeared, at Tubingen, 1563. Recently
EMU, COMBA has edited his Trattacelli e sua storia di Francesco Spiera in
the first two volumes of his "Biblioteca della Riforma Italiana," Firenze,
1883, and the Parafrasi sopra /' Epistofa ai Roinani, 1886. SIXT has pub
lished, from the Archives of Konigsberg, forty-four letters of Vergerius
to Albert, Duke of Prussia (pp. 533 sqq.), and KAUSLER and SCHOTT
(librarian at Stuttgart), his correspondence with Christopher, Duke of
Wiirtemberg (Briefwechsel zwischen Christoph Ilerzog von }Viirt. und P. P.
Vergerius, Tubingen, 1875). — WALTER FRIEDENSBURG : Die Nunciaturen
des Vergerio, 1533-36. Gotha, 1892 (615 pp.). From the papal archives.

* CHR. H. SIXT : Petms Paidus Vergerius, pdpstlicher Nimtins, katholischer
Bischof und Vorkdmpfer des Evangeliums. Braunschweig, 1855 (pp. 601).
With a picture of Vergerius. 2d (title) ed. 1871. The labors in the
Grisons are described in ch. III. 181 sqq. — Scattered notices of Vergerius
are found in Sleidan, Seckendorf, De Porta, Sarpi, Pallavicini, Raynal-
dus, Maimburg, Bayle, Niceron, Schelhorn, Salig, and Meyer (in his
monograph on Locarno, I. 36, 51; II. 236-255). A good article by
SCHOTT in Herzog2, XVI. 351-357. (Less eulogistic than Sixt.)

The evangelical Reformation spread in the Italian portions
of the Grisons ; namely, the valleys of Pregell or Bregaglia,1

1 This is the Italian name; in Latin, Prcegallia ; in German, Bergell.

146 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

and Poschiavo (Puschlav), which still belong to the Canton,
and in the dependencies of the Valtellina (Veltlin), Bormio
(Worms), and Chiavenna (Cleven), which were ruled by
governors (like the Territories of the United States), but
were lost to the Grisons in 1797. The Valtellina is famous
for its luxuriant vegetation, fiery wine, and culture of silk.
A Protestant congregation was also organized at Locarno in
the Canton Ticino (Tessin), which then was a dependency
of the Swiss Confederacy. This Italian chapter of the his
tory of Swiss Protestantism is closely connected with the
rise and suppression of the Reformation in Italy and the emi
gration of many Protestant confessors, who, like the French
Huguenots of a later period, were driven from their native
land, to enrich with their industry and virtue foreign coun
tries where they found a hospitable home.

The first impulse to the Reformation in the Italian Grisons
came from Gallicius and Campell, who labored in the neigh
boring Engadin, and knew Italian as well as Romansh. The
chief agents were Protestant refugees who fled from the
Inquisition to Northern Italy and found protection under
the government of the Grisons. Many of them settled there
permanently; others went to Zurich, Basel, and Geneva.
In the year 1550 the number of Italian refugees was about
two hundred. Before 1559 the number had increased to
eight hundred. One fourth or fifth of them were educated
men. Some inclined to Unitarian and Anabaptist opinions,
and prepared the way for Socinianism. Among the latter
may be mentioned Francesco Calabrese (in the Engadin);
Tiriano (at Coire) ; Camillo Renato, a forerunner of Socinian
ism (at Tirano in the Valtellina) ; Ochino, the famous Capu
chin pulpit orator (who afterwards went to Geneva, England,
and Zurich) ; Lelio Sozini (who died at Zurich, 1562) ; and
his more famous nephew, Fausto Sozini (1539-1604), the
proper founder of Socinianism, who ended his life in Poland.

The most distinguished of the Italian evangelists in the

§ 38. THE REFORMATION IN THE ITALIAN VALLEYS. 147

Orisons, is Petrus Paulus Vergerius (1498-1565). 1 He
labored there four years (1549-1553), and left some perma
nent traces of his influence. He ranks among the secondary
Reformers, and is an interesting but somewhat ambiguous
and unsatisfactory character, with a changeful career. He
held one of the highest positions at the papal court, and
became one of its most decided opponents.

PKTRUS FAULTS VERGERIUS.

Vergerio was at first a prominent lawyer at Venice. After
the death of his wife (Diana Contarini), he entered the ser
vice of the Church, and soon rose by his talents and attain-

1 PIERPAOLO VERGERIO, also called the younger, to distinguish him from
an older member of his illustrious family. Be Porta thus introduces his
account, I.e. : " Inter exsules, qui oh Evannelii confessionem Italia pro fug i in Rhcetia
consederunt, hand nl/ns sire generis nobilitatem, sire dignitatem, sive vitcr actcr
spectes, majorcm meretur attent/oneni r/ti(i»i P. P. Vergerius."

148 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

ments to influential positions. He was sent by Clement VII.,
together with Campeggi and Pimpinelli, to the Diet of Augs
burg, 1530, where he associated with Faber, Eck, and Coch-
keus, and displayed great zeal and skill in attempting to
suppress the Protestant heresy. He was made papal secretary
and domestic chaplain, 1532. He was again sent by Paul III.
to Germany, in 1535, to negotiate with the German princes
about the proposed General Council at Mantua. He had a
personal interview with Luther in Wittenberg (Nov. 7), and
took offence at his bad Latin, blunt speech, and plebeian
manner. He could not decide, he said in his official report
to the papal secretary (Nov. 12), whether this German
" beast " was possessed by an evil demon or not, but he cer
tainly was the embodiment of arrogance, malice, and unwis
dom.1 He afterwards spoke of Luther as u a man of sacred
memory," and " a great instrument of God," and lauded him
in verses which he composed on a visit to Eisleben in 1559.
On his return to Italy, he received as reward for his mission
the archbishopric of Capo cV Istria, his native place (not far
from Trieste). He aspired even to the cardinal's hat. He
attended — we do not know precisely in what capacity,
whether in the name of the Pope, or of Francis I. of France
— the Colloquies at Worms and Regensburg, in 1540 and
1541, where he met Melanchthon and Calvin. Melanchthon
presented him on that occasion with a copy of the Augsburg
Confession and the Apology.2 At that time he was, accord
ing to his confession, still as blind and impious as Saul. In
the address De Unit ate et Pace Ecdesiw, which he delivered
at Worms, Jan. 1, 1541, and which is diplomatic rather than
theological,3 he urged a General Council as a means to

1 Sixt gives (pp. 35-45), from Seckendorf, Sarpi, and Pallavicini, a full
account of this characteristic interview, which belongs to the history of the
Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches. The official report is published by
Friedensburg.

2 With a letter printed in his Opera, Cor]>. Reform. IV. 22, and in Sixt, 94.

3 Translated from the Latin in Sixt, 75-94. The address was printed and
distributed immediately after the delivery, but has become very rare.

§ 38. THE REFORMATION IN THE ITALIAN VALLEYS. 149

restore the unity and peace of the Church on the traditional
basis.

His conversion was gradually brought about by a combina
tion of several causes, — the reading of Protestant books
which he undertook with the purpose to refute them, his per
sonal intercourse with Lutheran divines and princes in Ger
many, the intolerance of his Roman opponents, and the fearful
death of Spiera. He acquired an experimental knowledge
of the evangelical doctrine of justification by faith, which at
that time commended itself even to some Roman divines of
high standing, as Cardinal Contarini and Reginald Pole,
and which was advocated by Paleario of Siena, and by a
pupil of Valdes in an anonymous Italian tract on " The Ben
efit of Christ's Death." l He began to preach evangelical
doctrines and to reform abuses. His brother, bishop of
Pola, fully sympathized with him. He roused the suspicion
of the Curia and the Inquisition. He went to Trent in
February, 1546, to justify himself before the Council, but
was refused admittance, and forbidden to return to his dio-

1 Trattato utilissimo del beneficio di Glesu Christo crucifisso, verso i Christiani.
Venet. 1540. It was circulated in more than forty thousand copies within six
years, translated into several languages, and republished from an English
version (made from the French), 4th ed., London, 1638, by the Religious Tract
Society of London, with an introduction by John Ayer, and again in Boston,
1860 (Gould £ Lincoln, pp. 160, with facsimile of the title-page). The
Italian original was recovered at Cambridge, 1855. Vergerius wrote in 1558
that there appeared no book in his age, at least in Italian, "so sweet, so pious,
so simple, and so well adapted to instruct the weak on the article of justifica
tion " (Sixt, p. 103). The tract was formerly (by Tiraboschi, Gercles, McCrie,
Jules Bonnet, Mrs. Young, and others) ascribed to Aonio Paleario, professor
of classical literature at Siena; but it was written by a pupil of the Spanish
nobleman, Juan de Valdes, at Naples, and revised by Flaminio. Ranke found
in the Acts of the Inquisition the notice, " Quel libro del beneficio di Christo fa
it suo autore itn monaco di Sanseverino in Napoli discepolo del Valdes, fu revisore
di detto libro il Flaminio, fu stampato'molte volte," etc. Die Rb'mischen Pdpste,
vol. I. pp. 90-92 (8th ed. 1883). Benrath found the name of the author,
Don Benedetto de Mantova, "Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengesch.," I. 575-596
(1877). Comp. his article Paleario, in Herzog2, XI. 165, note, and E. Bohmer
on Valdes, ibid. XVI. 276 sqq. Bohmer says that there are two Italian copies
of the tract in the imperial library at Vienna.

150 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

cese. He retired to Riva on the Lago di Garda, not far
from Trent.

In 1548 he paid a visit to Padua to take some of his
nephews to college. He found the city excited by the fear
ful tragedy of Francesco Spiera, a lawyer and convert from
Romanism, who had abjured the evangelical faith from fear
of the Inquisition, and fell into a hell of tortures of con
science under the conviction that he had committed the
unpardonable sin by rejecting the truth. He was for several
weeks a daily witness, with many others, of the agonies of
this most unfortunate of apostates, and tried in vain to com
fort him. He thought that we must not despair of any
sinner, though he had committed the crimes of Cain and
Judas. He prepared himself for his visits by prayer and the
study of the comforting promises of the Scriptures. But
Spiera had lost all faith, all hope, all comfort ; he insisted
that he had committed the sin against the Holy Spirit which
cannot be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come ;
he was tormented by the remembrance of the sins of his
youth, the guilt of apostasy, the prospect of eternal punish
ment which he felt already, and died in utter despair with a
heart full of hatred and blasphemy. His death was regarded
as a signal judgment of God, a warning example, and an
argument for the truth of the evangelical doctrines.1

Vergerio was overwhelmed by this experience, and brought
to a final decision. He wrote an apology in which he gives

1 I have given a full account of this tragedy in an appendix to my (German)
book on the Sin against the Holy Ghost (Halle, 1841), pp. 173-210, from a rare
publication of 191 pages (then in possession of Dr. Hengstenberg in Berlin) :
Francisci Spiera', qui, quod susceptam semel evangelical ren'tutis professionem
abnegasset damnassetrjue, in horrendam incidit desperationem, Historia, a cjuatuor
summit viris summa Jide conscripta, cum clariss. virorum prcefationibus,Colii 8. C.
et Iu. Calvini et Petri Pauli Verger li Apologia: in <jnibns mult a hoc tempore scitu
digna grarissime tractantur. . . . Basil. 1550. It was reprinted at Tubingen,
l-~>58. Vergerio first published an account in his Apologia, 1548 (not 1549),
which is contained in that book, and informed Calvin of it in a letter. Sixt
gives large extracts, pp. 125-160. See Comba, Francesco Spiera, Firenze, 1883.

§ 38. THE REFORMATION IN THE ITALIAN VALLEYS. 151

an account of the sad story, and renounces his connection
with Rome at the risk of persecution, torture, and death.
He sent it to the suffragan bishop of Padua, Dec. 13, 1548.

He was deposed and excommunicated by the pope, July 3,
1549, and fled over Bergamo to the Orisons. He remained
there till 1553, with occasional journeys to the Valtellina,
Chiavenna, Zurich, Bern, and Basel. He was hospitably
received, and developed great activity in preaching and
writing. People of all classes gathered around him, and
were impressed by his commanding presence and eloquence.
He founded a printing-press in Poschiavo in 1549, and issued
from it his thunderbolts against popery. He preached at
Pontresina and Samaden in the Upper Engadin, and effected
the abolition of the mass and the images. He labored as
pastor three years (1550-53) at Vicosoprano in Bregaglia.
He travelled through the greater part of Switzerland, and
made the acquaintance of Bullinger, Calvin, and Beza.

But the humble condition of the Grisons did not satisfy his
ambition. He felt isolated, and complained of the inhos
pitable valleys. He disliked the democratic institutions.
He quarrelled with the older Reformers, Comander and Galli-
cius. He tried to get the whole Synod of the Grisons under
his control, and, failing in this, to organize a separate synod
of the Italian congregations. Then he aspired to a more
prominent position at Zurich or Geneva or Bern, but Bul-
linsrer and Calvin did not trust him.

In November, 1553, he gladly accepted a call to Wurtem-
berg as counsellor of Duke Christopher, one of the best
princes of the sixteenth century, and spent his remaining
twelve years in the Duke's service. He resided in Tubingen,
but had no official connection with the University. He con
tinued to write with his rapid pen inflammatory tracts against
popery, promoted the translation and distribution of the
Bible in the South Slavonic dialect, maintained an extensive
correspondence, and was used in various diplomatic and

152 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

evangelical missions to the Emperor Maximilian at Vienna,
to the kings of Bohemia, and Poland. On his first journey
to Poland he made the personal acquaintance of Albert,
Duke of Prussia, who esteemed him highly and supplied him
with funds. He entered into correspondence with Queen
Elizabeth, in the vain hope of an invitation to England.
He desired to be sent as delegate to the religious conference
at Poissy in France, 1561, but was again disappointed. He
paid four visits to the Grisoiis (November, 1561 ; March, 1562 :
May, 1563 ; and April, 1564), to counteract the intrigues of
the Spanish and papal party, and to promote the harmony of
the Swiss Church with that of Wiirtemberg. On his second
visit he went as far as the Valtellina. He received an
informal invitation to attend the Council of Trent in 1561
from Delfino, the papal nuncio, in the hope that he might be
induced to recant ; he was willing to go at the risk of meet
ing the fate of Hus at Constance, but on condition of a safe
conduct, which was declined.1 At last he wished to unite
with the Bohemian Brethren, whom he admired for their
strict discipline combined with pure doctrine ; he translated
and published their Confession of Faith. He was in constant
need of money, and his many begging letters to the Dukes
of Wiirtemberg and of Prussia make a painful impression ;
but we must take into account the printing expenses of his
many books, his frequent journeys, and the support of three
nephews and a niece. In his fifty-ninth year he conceived
the plan of contracting a marriage, and asked the Duke to
double his allowance of two hundred guilders, but the re
quest was declined and the marriage given up.2

He died Oct. 4, 1565, at Tubingen, and was buried there.
Dr. Andreae, the chief author of the Lutheran Formula of
Concord, preached the funeral sermon, which the learned

1 See his letters to Duke Albert of Prussia, and the report of Pallavicini,
XV. 10; and Sixt, 485 sqq., 490 sqq.

2 Sixt, 510 sqq.

§ 38. THE REFORMATION IN THE ITALIAN VALLEYS. 153

Crusius took down in Greek. Duke Christopher erected a
monument to his memory with a eulogistic inscription.1

The very numerous Latin and Italian books and fugitive
tracts of Vergerio are chiefly polemical against the Roman
hierarchy of which he had so long been a conspicuous mem
ber.2 He exposed, with the intemperate zeal of a proselyte,
the chronique scandaleuse of the papacy, including the mythi
cal woman-pope, Johanna (John VIII.), who was then gen
erally believed to have really existed.3 He agreed with
Luther that the papacy was an invention of the Devil ; that
the pope was the very Antichrist seated in the temple of
God as predicted by Daniel (11:36) and Paul (2 Thess. 2:
3 sq.), and the beast of the Apocalypse ; and that he would
soon be destroyed by a divine judgment. He attacked all the
contemporary popes, except Adrian VI., to whom he gives
credit for honesty and earnestness. He is especially severe
on " Saul IV." (Paul IV.), who as Cardinal Caraffa had
made some wise and bold utterances on the corruption of the
clergy, but since his elevation to the "apostate chair, which
corrupts every one who ascends it," had become the leader of
the Counter-Reformation with its measures of violence and
blood. Such monsters, he says, are the popes. One contra
dicts the other, and yet they are all infallible, and demand
absolute submission. Rather die a thousand times than have
any communion with popery and fall away from Christ, the

1 The epitaphium, in eighteen hexameters, plays ingeniously on his name,
— Petw, who denied the Lord, and, after his conversion, fed his sheep; Paul,
who first persecuted and then built up the Church ; and Vergerius, " vergens ad
orcum and vergens ad astra poll" The monument in the Georgenkirche was
destroyed by the Jesuits in 1636 and restored 1672, but has disappeared since,
according to Schott (Herzog2, XVI. 357), whose statement (againt Sixt, 527)
is confirmed by Dr. Weizsiicker (in a private letter of Jan. 5, 1891).

2 Many of them appeared anonymously or under such false names as Atha-
nasius, Fra Giovanni, Lambertus de Nigromonte, Valerius Philarchus, etc.

3 This medieval fiction was probably a Roman satire on the monstrous
regiment of bad women who controlled the papacy in the tenth century. It
was first disproved by David Blondel. See vol. IV. 265 sq.

154 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

Son of God, who was crucified for us and rose from the dead.
Popery and the gospel are as incompatible as darkness and
light, as Belial and Christ. No compromise is possible
between them. Vergerio was hardly less severe on the
cardinals and bishops, although he allowed some honorable
exceptions. He attacked and ridiculed the Council of Trent,
then in session, and tried to show that it was neither gen
eral, nor free, nor Christian. He used the same arguments
against it as the Old Catholics used against the Vatican
Council of 1870. He repelled the charge of heresy and
turned it against his former co-religionists. The Protestants
who follow the Word of God are orthodox, the Romanists
who follow the traditions of men are the heretics.

His anti-popery writings were read with great avidity by
his contemporaries, but are now forgotten. Bullinger was
unfavorably impressed, and found in them no solid substance,
but only frivolous mockery and abuse.

As regards the differences among Protestants, Vergerio
was inconsistent. He first held the Calvinistic theory of
the Lord's Supper, and expressed it in his own Catechism,1
in a letter to Bullinger of Jan. 16, 1554, and even later, in
June, 1556, at Wittenberg, where he met Melanchthon and
Eber. But in Wiirtemberg he had to subscribe the Augs
burg Confession, and in a letter to the Duke of Wurtemberg,
Oct. 28, 1557, he confessed the ubiquitarian theory of Luther.
He also translated the Catechism of Brenz and the Wurtem
berg1 Confession into Italian, and thereby offended the Swiss
Zwinglians, but told them that he was merely the translator.
He never attributed much importance to the difference, and
kept aloof from the eucharistic controversy.2 He was not
a profound theologian, but an ecclesiastical politician and
diplomatist, after as well as before his conversion.

Vergerio left the Roman Church rather too late, when the

1 Fondamento della religione Christiana per uso della Valtellina. 1553.

2 His views on the Eucharist are discussed by Sixt, 208, 214, and 497 sqq.

§ 39. PHOT. IN CHIAVENNA AND THE VALTELLINA. 155

Counter-Reformation had already begun to crush Protestant
ism in Italy. He was a man of imposing personality, con
siderable learning and eloquence, wit and irony, polemic
dexterity, and diplomatic experience, but restless, vain, and
ambitious. He had an extravagant idea of his own impor
tance. He could not forget his former episcopal authority
and pretensions, nor his commanding position as the repre
sentative of the pope. He aspired to the dignity and influ
ence of a sort of Protestant internuncio at all the courts
of Europe, and of a mediator between the Lutheran and
Reformed Churches. Pallavicino, the Jesuit historian of
the Council of Trent, characterizes him as a lively and bold
man who could not live without business, and imagined that
business could not get along without him. Calvin found in
him much that is laudable, but feared that he was a restless
busybody. Gallicius wrote to Bullinger : " I wish that Ver-
gerio would be more quiet, and persuade himself that the
heavens will not fall even if he, as another Atlas, should
withdraw his support." Nevertheless, Vergerio filled an
important place in the history of his times. He retained
the esteem of the Lutheran princes and theologians, and he
is gratefully remembered for his missionary services in the
two Italian valleys of the Orisons, which have remained
faithful to the evangelical faith to this day.

§ 39. Protestantism in Chiavenna and the Valtellina, and its
Suppression. The Valtellina Massacre. George Jenatsch.

See literature in §§ 36 and 38, pp. 131 and 144 sq.

We pass now to the Italian dependencies of the Grisons,
where Protestantism has had only a transient existence.

At Chiavenna the Reformed worship was introduced in
1544 by Agostino Mainardi, a former monk of Piedmont,
under the protection of Hercules von Salis, governor of the
province. He was succeeded by Jerome Zanchi (1516-

156 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

1590), an Augustinian monk who had been converted by
reading the works of the Reformers under the direction of
Vermigli at Lucca, and became one of the most learned and
acute champions of the Calvinistic system. He fled to the
Grisons in 1551, and preached at Chiavenna. Two years
later he accepted a call to a Hebrew professorship at Strass-
burg. There he got into a controversy with Marbach on
the doctrine of predestination, which he defended with logi
cal rigor.1 In 1563 he returned to Chiavenna as pastor.
He had much trouble with restless Italian refugees and with
the incipient heresy of Socinianism. In 1568 he left for
Heidelberg, as professor of theology on the basis of the
Palatinate Catechism, which in 1563 had been introduced
under the pious Elector Frederick III. He prepared the
way for Calvinistic scholasticism. A complete edition of
his works appeared at Geneva, 1619, in three folio volumes.

Chiavenna had several other able pastors, — Simone Flo
rillo, Scipione Lentulo of Naples, Ottaviano Meio of Lucca.

Small Protestant congregations were founded in the Val-
tellina, at Caspan (1546), Sondrio (the seat of government),
Teglio, Tirano, and other towns. Dr. McCrie says : " Upon
the whole, the number of Protestant churches to the south
of the Alps appears to have exceeded twenty, which were
all served, and continued till the end of the sixteenth cen
tury to be for the most part served, by exiles from Italy."

But Protestantism in Chiavenna, Bormio, and the Valtel-
lina was at last swept out of existence. We must here
anticipate a bloody page of the history of the seventeenth
century.

Several causes combined for the destruction of Protestant
ism in Upper Italy. The Catholic natives were never friendly
to the heretical refugees who settled among them, and called
them banditi, which has the double meaning of exile and
outlaw. They reproached the Grisons for receiving them

1 Schweizer, Central dog men der Ref. Kirche, I. 422 sqq.

§ 39. THE VALTELLINA MASSACRE. 157

after they had been expelled from other Christian countries.
They were kept in a state of political vassalage, instead of
being admitted to equal rights with the three leagues. The
provincial governors were often oppressive, sold the subordi
nate offices to partisans, and enriched themselves at the
expense of the inhabitants. The Protestants were distracted
by internal feuds. The Roman Counter-Reformation was
begun with great zeal and energy in Upper Italy and Swit
zerland by the saintly Cardinal Charles Borromeo, archbishop
of Milan. Jesuits and Capuchins stirred up the hatred of
the ignorant and superstitious people against the Protestant
heretics. In the Grisons themselves the Roman Catholic
party under the lead of the family of Planta, and the Protes
tants, headed by the family of Salis, strove for the mastery.
The former aimed at the suppression of the Reformation in
the leagues as w^ell as the dependencies, and were suspected
of treasonable conspiracy with Spain and Austria. The Prot
estant party held a court (Strafyerielit, a sort of tribunal of
inquisition) at Thusis in 1618, which included nine preachers,
and condemned the conspirators. The aged Zambra, who
in the torture confessed complicity with Spain, was be
headed ; Nicolaus Rusca, an esteemed priest, leader of the
Spanish Catholic interests in the Valtellina, called the ham
mer of the heretics, Avas cruelly tortured to death; Bishop
John Flugi was deposed and outlawed ; the brothers Rudolf
and Pompeius Planta, the knight Jacob Robustelli, and other
influential Catholics were banished, and the property of the
Plantas was confiscated.

These unrighteous measures created general indignation.
The exiles fostered revenge, and were assured of Spanish
aid. Robustelli returned, after his banishment, to the Val
tellina, and organized a band of about three hundred desperate
bandits from the Venetian and Milanese territories for the
overthrow of the government of the Grisons and the exter
mination of Protestantism.

158 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

This is the infamous " Valtellina Massacre " ( Veltliner
Mord) of July, 1620. It may be called an imitation of the
Sicilian Vespers, and of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
It was the fiendish work of religious fanaticism combined
with political discontent. The tragedy began in the silence
of the night, from July 18th to 19th, by the murder of sixty
defenceless adult Protestants of Tirano ; the Podesta Ender-
lin was shot down in the street, mutilated, and thrown into
the Adda; Anton von Salis took refuge in the house of a
Catholic friend, but was sought out and killed; the head
of the Protestant minister, Anton Bassa of Poschiavo, was
posted on the pulpit of the church. The murderers pro
ceeded to Teglio, and shot down about the same number of
persons in the church, together with the minister, who was
wounded in the pulpit, and exhorted the hearers to perse
vere ; a number of women and children, who had taken
refuge in the tower of the church, were burnt. The priest
of Teglio took part in the bloody business, carrying the cross
in the left, and the sword in the right hand. At Soiidrio,
the massacre raged for three days. Seventy-one Protestants,
by their determined stand, were permitted to escape to the
Engadin, but one hundred and forty fell victims to the ban
dits ; a butcher boasted of having murdered eighteen persons.
Not even the dead were spared ; their bodies were exhumed,
burnt, thrown into the water, or exposed to wild beasts.
Paula Baretta, a noble Venetian lady of eighty years, who
had left a nunnery for her religious conviction, was shame
fully maltreated and delivered to the Inquisition at Milan,
where a year afterward she suffered death at the stake.
Anna of Libo fled with a child of two years in her arms ;
she was overtaken and promised release on condition of
abjuring her faith. She refused, saying, "You may kill
the body, but not the soul"; she pressed her child to her
bosom, and received the death-blow. When the people saw
the stream of blood on the market-place before the chief

§ 39. THE VALTELLINA MASSACRE. 159

church, they exclaimed : " This is the revenge for our mur
dered arch-priest Rusca ! " He was henceforth revered as
a holy martyr. At Morbegno the Catholics behaved well,
and aided the Protestants in making their escape. The
fugitives were kindly received in the Grisons and other parts
of Switzerland. From the Yaltellina Robustelli proceeded
to Poschiavo, burnt the town of Brusio, and continued there
the butchery of Protestants till he was checked.1

The Valtellina declared itself independent and elected the
knight Robustelli military chief. The canons of the Council
of Trent were proclaimed, papal indulgences introduced, the
evangelical churches and cemeteries reconsecrated for Catho
lic use, the corpses of Protestants dug up, burnt, and cast into
the river. Addresses were sent to the Pope and the kings
of Spain and France, explaining and excusing the foul deeds
by which the rebels claimed to have saved the Roman relig
ion and achieved political freedom from intolerable tyranny.

Now began the long and bloody conflicts for the recovery
of the lost province, in which several foreign powers took
part. The question of the Yaltellina (like the Eastern
question in modern times) became a European question, and
was involved in the Thirty Years' War. Spain, in possession
of Milan, wished to join hands with Austria across the Alpine
passes of the Grisons ; while France and Yenice had a polit
ical motive to keep them closed. Austrian and Spanish
troops conquered and occupied the Yaltellina and the three
leagues, expelled the Protestant preachers, and inflicted un-

1 Moderate Catholic historians dare not defend this massacre, any more
than that of St. Bartholomew, but explain it as a terrible Nemesis and des
perate self-vindication against the oppressions of the commissioners of the
Grisons. So Fetz, who says (I.e. p. 113): "Die besonnenen Katholiken haben
diese schauerliche Selbsthulfe, wodurch viele Unschuldige als Opfer der Eache ge~
fallen, niemals gebilligt ; andererseits konnten und konnen billig denkende Protestanten
das arge Treiben der Prddicanten und reformirten Afachthaber im Veltlin und Um-
gebung ebensowenig gutheissen, denn dieses arge Treiben war die erste und letzte
Ursdche der verzweifelten Selbsthulfe. '.' But Italian Catholic writers (as Cantu)
call it sacro macello, a sacred slaughter!

160 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

speakable misery upon the people. France, no less Catholic
under the lead of Cardinal Richelieu, but jealous of the
house of Habsburg, came to the support of the Protestants
in the Grisons, as well as the Swedes in the north, and
sent an army under the command of the noble Huguenot
Duke Henri de Rohan, who defeated the Austrians and
Spaniards, and conquered the Valtellina (1635).

The Grisons with French aid recovered the Valtellina by
the stipulation of Chiavenna, 1636, which guaranteed to the
three leagues all the rights of sovereignty, but on condition
of tolerating no other religion in that province but the Roman
Catholic. Rohan, who had the best intentions for the Gri
sons, desired to save Protestant interests, but Catholic France
would not agree. He died in 1638, and was buried at Geneva.

The Valtellina continued to be governed by bailiffs till
1797. It is now a part of the kingdom of Italy, and enjoys
the religious freedom guaranteed by the constitution of 1848.1

In this wild episode of the Thirty Years' War, a Protestant
preacher, Colonel Georg Jenatsch, plays a prominent figure
as a romantic hero. He was born at Samaden in the Upper
Engadin, 1590, studied for the Protestant ministry at Zurich,
successively served the congregations at Scharans and at
Berbenno in the Valtellina, and narrowly escaped the massa
cre at Sondrio by making his flight through dangerous moun
tain passes. He was an eloquent speaker, an ardent patriot, a
shrewd politician, and a brave soldier, but ambitious, violent,
unscrupulous, extravagant, and unprincipled. He took part
in the cruel decision of the court of Thusis (1618), and
killed Pompeius Planta with an axe (1621). He served as
guide and counsellor of the Duke de Rohan, and by his
knowledge, pluck, and energy, materially aided him in the

1 The statute fondamentale of Sardinia, which in 1870 was extended over
all Italy, declares the Roman Catholic Church to be the state religion, but
grants toleration to all other forms of worship. The Waldenses have recently
established preaching stations at Chiavenna and other places of Upper Italy.

§ 40. THE CONGREGATION OF LOCAKNO. 161

defeat of Austria. Being disappointed in his ambition, he
turned traitor to France, joined the Austrian party and the
Roman Church (1635), but educated his children in the
Protestant religion. He was murdered at a banquet in Coire
(1639) by an unknown person in revenge for the murder of
Pompeius Planta. He is buried in the Catholic church, near
the bishop's palace. A Capuchin monk delivered the funeral
oration.1

§ 40. The Congregation of Locarno.

FERDINAND MEYER : Die evangelische Gemeinde von Locarno, ihre Ausivanderung
nach Zurich und ihre weiteren Schicksale. Zurich, 1836. 2 vols. An ex
haustive monograph carefully drawn from MS. sources, and bearing more
particularly on the Italian congregation at Zurich, to which the leading
Protestant families of Locarno emigrated.

Locarno, a beautiful town on the northern end of the
Lago Maggiore, was subject to the Swiss Confederacy and
ruled by bailiffs.2 It had in the middle of the sixteenth
century a Protestant congregation of nearly two hundred
members.3 Chief among them were Beccaria, Taddeo Duno,
Lodovico Ronco, and Martino Muralto. A religious disputa
tion was held there in 1549, about the authority of the pope,
the merit of good works, justification, auricular confession,
and purgatory.4 It ended in a tumult. Wirz, the presiding
bailiff, who knew neither Latin nor Italian, gave a decision
in favor of the Roman party. Beccaria refused to submit,
escaped, and went to Zurich, where he was kindly received

1 He is the hero of a drama by Arnold von Salis, and of a classical novel
by the Swiss poet, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer (Jury Jenatsch. Leipzig. 3d ed.
1882). A full biography of Jenatsch by Dr. E. Haffter is announced.

2 It originally belonged to the Duchy of Milan, and was ceded to Switzer
land in 1512, together with Lugano and Domo d'Ossola. In 1803 it became,
with Lugano and Bellinzona, one of the three capitals of the Italian canton
Ticino. In 1878 Bellinzona was declared the only capital.

3 Meyer gives a complete list of members from the Archives of Zurich,
and two lists of those who emigrated to Zurich, vol. I. 511-515 and 521-525.

4 An account of it by Duno in a letter to Bullinger, and in the book De
persecutione. See Meyer, I. 190 sqq.

162 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

by Bullinger. He became afterwards a member of the Synod
of Graubiinden, and was sent as an evangelist to Misocco,
but returned to Zurich.

The faithful Protestants of Locarno, who preferred emigra
tion to submission, wandered with wives and children on
foot and on horseback over snow and ice to Graubiinden and
Zurich, in 1556. Half of them remained in the Grisons,
and mingled with the evangelical congregations. The rest
organized an Italian congregation in Zurich under the foster
ing care of Bullinger. It was served for a short time by
Vergerio, who came from Tubingen for the purpose, and then
by Bernardino Ochino, who had fled from England to Basel
after the accession of Queen Mary. Ochino was a brilliant
genius and an eloquent preacher, then already sixty-eight
years old, but gave offence by his Arian and other heretical
opinions, and was required to leave in 1563. He went to
Basel, Strassburg, Niirnberg, Krakau ; was expelled from
Poland, Aug. 6, 1564 ; and died in poverty in Moravia, 1565,
a victim of his subtle speculations and the intolerance of his
times. He wrote an Italian catechism for the Locarno con
gregation in the form of a dialogue (1561).

The most important accession to the exiles was Pietro
Martire Vermigli, who had likewise fled from England, first
to Strassburg (1553), then to Zurich (1555). He was re
ceived as a member into the council of the Locarno congre
gation, presented with the citizenship of Zurich, and elected
professor of Hebrew in place of Conrad Pellican (who died in
1556). He labored there till his death, in 1562, in intimate
friendship and harmony with Bullinger, generally esteemed
and beloved. He was one of the most distinguished and use
ful Italian converts, and, like Zanchi, an orthodox Calvinist.

The Italian congregation was enlarged by new fugitives
from Locarno and continued to the end of the sixteenth cen
tury. The principal families of Duno, Muralto, Orelli, Pes-
talozzi, and others were received into citizenship, took a

§ 41. ZWINGLIANISM IN GERMANY. 163

prominent position in the history of Zurich, and promoted its
industry and prosperity, like the exiled Huguenots in Bran
denburg, Holland, England, and North America.1

§ 41. Zwinglianism in Germany.

The principles of the Helvetic Reformation spread also to
some extent in Germany, but in a modified form, and pre
pared the way for the mediating (Melanchthonian) character
of the German Reformed Church. Although Luther over
shadowed every other personality in Germany, Zwingli had
also his friends and admirers, especially the Landgrave,
Philip of Hesse, who labored very zealously, though unsuc
cessfully, for a union of the Lutherans and the Reformed.
Bucer and Capito at Strassburg, Cellarius at Augsburg,
Blaurer at Constance, Hermann at Reutlingen, and Somius
at Ulm, strongly sympathized with the genius and tendency
of the Zurich Reformer.2 His influence was especially felt in
those free cities of Southern Germany where the democratic
element prevailed.

Four of these cities, Strassburg, Constance, Memmingen,
and Lindau, handed to the Diet of Augsburg, llth July,
1530, a special confession (Confessio Tetrapolitana) drawn
up by Bucer, with the assistance of Hedio, and answered by
the Roman divines, Faber, Eck, and Cochlseus. It is the first
symbolical book of the German Reformed Church (Zwingli's
writings having never acquired symbolical authority), but
was superseded by the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) and
the Second Helvetic Confession (1566). It strikes a middle
course between the Augsburg Confession of Melanchthon and
the private Confession sent in by Zwingli during the same
Diet, and anticipates Calvin's view 011 the Lord's Supper by
teaching a real fruition of the true body and blood of Christ,

1 On the industry of the Italians in Zurich, see Meyer, II. 375-391.

2 See the correspondence of Zwingli, in his Opera, vols. VII. and VIII.

164 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

not through the mouth, but through faith, for the nourish
ment of the soul into eternal life.1

The Zwinglian Reformation was checked and almost
destroyed in Germany by the combined opposition of Roman
ism and Lutheranism. The four cities could not maintain
their isolated position, and signed the Augsburg Confession
for political reasons, to join the Smalcaldian League. The
Reformed Church took a new start in the Palatinate under
the combined influence of Zwingli, Melanchthon, and Calvin
(1563), gained strength by the accession of the reigning
dynasty of Prussia (since 1614), and was ultimately admit
ted to equal rights with the Roman Catholic and Lutheran
Churches in the German Empire by the Treaty of Westpha
lia (1648).

i See VI. 718-721.

CHAPTER V.

THE CIVIL WAR BETWEEN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC
AND REFORMED CANTONS.

See the works of ESCHER, OECHSLI, and FENNER, quoted on p. 19 ; MORIKO-
FER, Zwingli, II. 346-452 ; and BLUNTSCHLI, Geschichte des schweizerischen
Bundesrechtes von den ewigen Biinden bis auf die Gegenwart. Stuttgart.
2d ed. 1875, 2 vols.

§ 42. The First War of Cappel. 1529.

THE year 1530 marks the height of the Zwinglian Refor
mation. It was firmly established in the leading cities and
cantons of Zurich, Bern, and Basel. It had gained a strong
majority of the people in Northern and Eastern Switzerland,
and in the Grisons. It had fair prospects of ultimate success
in the whole confederacy, when its further progress was sud
denly arrested by the catastrophe of Cappel and the death of
Zwingli.

The two parties had no conception of toleration (except in
Glarus and the Grisons), but aimed at supremacy and ex
cluded each other wherever they had the power. They
came into open conflict in the common territories or free
bailiwicks, by the forcible attempts made there to introduce
the new religion, or to prevent its introduction. The Prot
estants, under the lead of Zwingli, were the aggressors, espe
cially in the confiscation of the rich abbey of St. Gall. They
had in their favor the right of progress and the majority of
the population. But the Roman Catholics had on their side
the tradition of the past, the letter of the law, and a majority
of Cantons and of votes in the Diet, in which the people
were not directly represented. They strictly prohibited
Protestant preaching within their own jurisdiction, and even

165

166 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

began bloody persecution. Jacob Kaiser (or Schlosser), a
Zurich minister, was seized on a preaching expedition, and
publicly burnt at the stake in the town of Schwyz (May,
1529). l His martyrdom was the signal of war. The Prot
estants feared, not without good reason, that this case was
the beginning of a general persecution.

With the religious question was closely connected the
political and social question of the foreign military service,2
which Zwingli consistently opposed in the interest of patriot
ism, and which the Roman Catholics defended in the interest
of wealth and fame. This was a very serious matter, as may
be estimated from the fact that, according to a statement of
the French ambassador, his king had sent, from 1512 to 1531,
no less than 1,133,547 gold crowns to Switzerland, a sum
equal to four times the amount at present valuation. The
pensions were the Judas price paid by foreign sovereigns to
influential Swiss for treason to their country. In his oppo
sition to this abuse, Zwingli was undoubtedly right, and his
view ultimately succeeded, though long after his death.3

Both parties organized for war, which broke out in 1529,
and ended in a disastrous defeat of the Protestants in 1531.
Sixteen years later, the Lutheran princes suffered a similar
defeat in the Smalcaldian War against the Emperor (1547).
The five Forest Cantons — Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Luzern,
and Zug — formed a defensive and offensive league (Novem
ber, 1528 ; the preparations began in 1527), and even entered,
first secretly, then openly, into an alliance with Ferdinand
Duke of Austria and King of Bohemia and Hungary (April,
1529). This alliance with the old hereditary enemy of
Switzerland, whom their ancestors had defeated in glorious

1 For the particulars of this case see Morikofer, II. 146 sqq., and Chris-
toffel, I. 376 sq.

2 The Eeislaufen, or running to war; reisig, in old German, means ready
for war (Jcriegsrustig}.

3 Christoffel, I. 382. Comp. § 7, p. 24.

§ 42. THE FIRST WAR OF CAPPEL. 167

battles, was treasonable and a step towards the split of the
confederacy in two hostile camps (which was repeated in
1846). King Ferdinand had a political and religious interest
in the division of Switzerland and fostered it. Freiburg,
Wallis, and Solothurn sided with the Catholic Cantons, and
promised aid in case of war. The Protestant Cantons, led by
Zurich (which made the first step in this direction) formed
a Protestant league under the name of the Christian co-burgh-
ery (^Burgrecht) with the cities of Constance (Dec. 25,
1527), Biel and Miihlhausen (1529), and Strassburg (Jan. 9,
1530).1

Zwingli, provoked by the burning of Kaiser, and seeing
the war clouds gathering all around, favored prompt action,
which usually secures a great advantage in critical moments.
He believed in the necessity of war ; while Luther put his
sole trust in the Word of God, although he stirred up the
passions of war by his writings, and had himself the martyr's
courage to go to the stake. Zwingli was a free republican ;
while Luther was a loyal monarchist. He belonged to the
Cromwellian type of men who " trust in God and keep their
powder dry." In him the reformer, the statesman, and the
patriot were one. He appealed to the examples of Joshua
and Gideon, forgetting the difference between the Old and
the New dispensation. " Let us be firm," he wrote to his
peace-loving friends in Bern (May 30, 1529), "and fear not
to take up arms. This peace, which some desire so much, is
not peace, but war ; while the war that we call for, is not
war, but peace. We thirst for no man's blood, but we will
cut the nerves of the oligarchy. If we shun it, the truth of
the gospel and the ministers' lives will never be secure
among us." 2

1 The documents of t'nese leagues are given by Bullinger, Hottinger, and
by Bluntschli, I.e. I. 303-305, 318 sq. ; II. 238-255.

- " Quod hactenus ad i>os scripsi, iterum atque iterum facio, ut constantes sitis,
neqne bellum metuatis. Nam ista pax, quam quid am tantopere urgent, bellum est,
non pax j et bellum, cui nos instamus, pax qst, non belhim. Non enim sitimus

168 THE SWISS REFOKMATION.

Zurich was first ready for the conflict and sent four thou
sand well-equipped soldiers to Cappel, a village with a Cister
cian convent, in the territory of Zurich on the frontier of the
Canton Zug.1 Smaller detachments were located at Brem-
garten, and on the frontier of Schwyz, Basel, St. Gall.
Miihlhausen furnished auxiliary troops. Bern sent five
thousand men, but with orders to act only in self-defence.

Zwingli accompanied the main force to Cappel. "When
my brethren expose their lives," he said to the burgomaster,
who wished to keep him back, " I will not remain quiet at
home. The army requires a watchful eye." He put the
halberd which he had worn as chaplain at Marignano, over
his shoulder, and mounted his horse, ready to conquer or to
die for God and the fatherland.2

He prepared excellent instructions for the soldiers, and a
plan of a campaign that should be short, sharp, decisive, and,
if possible, unbloody.

Zurich declared war June 9, 1529. But before the forces
crossed the frontier of the Forest Cantons, Landammann
Aebli of Glarus, where the Catholics and Protestants wor-

cujusquam sanguinem, negue etiam per tumult um hauriemus, sed in hoc sumus, ut
oligarchic nervi succidantur. Id nisi fiat, neque Evangelii ventas, neque illius
ministri apud nos in tuto erunt. Nihil crudele cogitamus : sed quicquid agimus,
amicum et paternum est." Opera, VIII. 294.

1 Cappel has become famous by the battle of 1531 and the death of Zwin
gli. It lies six miles from the town of Zug. The battle-field and the monu
ment of Zwingli are about ten minutes' walk from Cappel. The old church
is well preserved, and has recently been repaired. See Annales Ccenobii Capel-
loni per H. Bullingerum et P. Simferum, in Simler's (printed) Smnmlung alter
und neuer Urkunden (Zurich, 1760), II. 397; and Pestalozzi's Bullinger, p. 20.

2 It is stated by Bullinger, and usually supposed, that he only went in the
capacity of chaplain, like Konrad Schmid and Franz Zingg, who likewise
preached in the army. The armor seems to indicate the warrior, as Hagen-
bach thinks (p. 405), but not necessarily. There is no evidence that Zwingli
actually fought in any battle. A. Baur (Zwingli' s Theologie, II. 759) says that
he went to war simply as patriot and chaplain, not as politician and captain.
It is difficult, however, to separate these characters in him. The weapons of
Zwingli — a harness, a helmet, and a sword — were kept in the arsenal at
Luzern till 1848 in the Sonderbundskrieg, when they were carried to Zurich.

§ 42. THE FIRST WAR OF CAPPEL. 169

ship in one church, appeared from a visit to the hostile army
as peacemaker, and prevented a bloody collision. He was a
friend of Zwingli, an enemy of the mercenary service, and
generally esteemed as a true patriot. With tears in his eyes,
says Bullinger, he entreated the Ziirichers to put off the
attack even for a few hours, in the hope of bringing about
an honorable peace. " Dear lords of Zurich, for God's sake,
prevent the division and destruction of the confederacy."
Zwingli opposed him, and said : " My dear friend,1 you will
answer to God for this counsel. As long as the enemies are
in our power, they use good words ; but as soon as they are
well prepared, they will not spare us." He foresaw what
actually happened after his death. Aebli replied : " I trust
in God that all will go well. Let each of us do his best."
And he departed.

Zwingli himself was not unwilling to make peace, but
only on four conditions which he sent a day after Aebli's
appeal, in a memorandum to the Council of Zurich (June
11) : 1) That the Word of God be preached freely in the
entire confederacy, but that no one be forced to abolish
the mass, the images, and other ceremonies which will fall
of themselves under the influence of scriptural preaching;
2) that all foreign military pensions be abolished; 3) that the
originators and the dispensers of foreign pensions be pun
ished while the armies are still in the field ; 4) that the
Forest Cantons pay the cost of war preparations, and that
Schwyz pay one thousand guilders for the support of the
orphans of Kaiser (Schlosser) who had recently been burnt
there as a heretic.

An admirable discipline prevailed in the camp of Zurich,
that reminds one of the Puritan army of Cromwell. Zwin
gli or one of his colleagues preached daily ; prayers were

1 They addressed each other " Gevatter," "gossip," which denotes a baptis
mal relationship. When Zwingli was pastor at Glarus, he stood sponsor to
Aebli's children in baptism.

170 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

offered before each meal ; psalms, hymns, and national songs
resounded in the tents ; no oath was heard ; gambling and
swearing were prohibited, and disreputable women excluded ;
the only exercises were wrestling, casting stones, and military
drill. There can be little doubt that if the Ziirichers had
made a timely attack upon the Catholics and carried out the
plan of Zwingli, they would have gained a complete victory
and dictated the terms of peace. How long the peace would
have lasted is a different question ; for behind the Forest
Cantons stood Austria, which might at any time have changed
the situation.

But counsels of peace prevailed. Bern was opposed to the
offensive, and declared that if the Ziirichers began the attack,
they should be left to finish it alone. The Ziirichers them
selves were divided, and their military leaders (Berger and
Escher) inclined to peace.

The Catholics, being assured that they need not fear an
attack from Bern, mustered courage and were enforced by
troops from Wallis and the Italian bailiwicks. They now
numbered nearly twelve thousand armed men.

The hostile armies faced each other from Cappel and Baar,
but hesitated to advance. Catholic guards would cross over
the border to be taken prisoners by the Ziirichers, who had
an abundance of provision, and sent them back well fed and
clothed. Or they would place a large bucket of milk on the
border line and asked the Ziirichers for bread, who supplied
them richly ; whereupon both parties peacefully enjoyed a
common meal, and when one took a morsel on the enemy's
side, he was reminded not to cross the frontier. The soldiers
remembered that they were Swiss confederates, and that many
of them had fought side by side on foreign battle-fields.1 " We
shall not fight," they said ; " and pray God that the storm
may pass away without doing us any harm." Jacob Sturm,

1 Similar episodes of kindly intercourse occurred between the Confederate
and Union soldiers during the civil war in the United States.

§ 43. THE FIRST PEACE OF CAPPEL. 171

the burgomaster of Strassburg, who was present as a medi
ator, was struck with the manifestation of personal harmony
and friendship in the midst of organized hostility. " You
are a singular people," he said ; " though disunited, you are
united."

§ 43. The First Peace of Cappel. June, 1529.

After several negotiations, a treaty of Peace was con
cluded June 25, 1529, between Ziirich, Bern, Basel, St. Gall,
and the cities of Miihlhausen and Biel on the one hand, and
the five Catholic Cantons on the other. The deputies of
Glarus, Solothurn, Schaffhausen, Appenzell, Graubunden,
Sargans, Strassburg, and Constanz acted as mediators.

The treaty was not all that Zwingli desired, especially as
regards the abolition of the pensions and the punishment of
the dispensers of pensions (wherein he was not supported by
Bern), but upon the whole it was favorable to the cause of
the Reformation.

The first and most important of the Eighteen Articles of
the treaty recognizes, for the first time in Europe, the prin
ciple of parity or legal equality of the Roman Catholic and
Protestant Churches, — a principle which twenty-six years
afterwards was recognized also in Germany (by the Auys-
burger Religionsfriede of 1555), but which was not finally
settled there till after the bloody baptism of the Thirty Years'
War, in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), against which the
Pope of Rome still protests in vain. That article guarantees
to the Reformed and Roman Catholic Cantons religious free
dom in the form of mutual toleration, and to the common
bailiwicks the right to decide by majority the question whether
they would remain Catholics or become Protestants.1 The

1 The Swiss German text of the first Article of the first Landsfriede of
Cappel is as follows (Bluntschli, II. 257) : " Des ersten von w'dgen des Gottlichen
worts, diewyl und nieman zum glouben bezwungen sol icerden, das dann die ftinff
vrt und die iren, des selben ouch nitt genotiget. Aber die ziigewandten und vogthien,
\vo man mitt einandern zii beherschen hat, belangend, wo die selben die mess abge~

172 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

treaty also provided for the payment of the expenses of the
war by the five cantons, and for an indemnity to the family of
the martyred Kaiser. The abolition of the foreign pensions
was not demanded, but recommended to the Roman Catholic
Cantons. The alliance with Austria was broken. The doc
ument which contained the treasonable treaty was cut to
pieces by Aebli in the presence of Zwingli and the army of
Zurich.1

The Catholics returned to their homes discontented. The
Ziirichers had reason to be thankful ; still more the Berners,
who had triumphed with their policy of moderation.

Zwingli wavered between hopes and fears for the future,
but his trust was in God. He wrote (June 30) to Conrad
Som, minister at Ulm: "We have brought peace with us,
which for us, I hope, is quite honorable ; for we did not go

stellt wid die bilder verbrlint oder abgetJ/an, das die selben an lib eer und gut, nitt
gestraaft sollind werden. Wo aber die utess nnd ander ceremonien nock vorhanden,
die sb'llend nitt gezwungen, ouch inen keine predicanten, so es nitt durclt den meer-
thei/l erkendt ivirt, geschickt, uffgestellt oder geqdben werden, sunder u~as under
inen den kt/lchgenossen die v.jf' oder ahzuthiind, dessgli/chen mitt der #/>//.<?, die
Gott nitt verbotten zil essen, genie ret tcird, daby sol es biss uff der kt/lchgenossen
gefallen bit/ben: und dhein tei/l dem andern sinen glouben, tceder smehen noch
straafen"

Bluntschli (a great authority in Swiss as well as international law) thus
explains this article (I. 324): " In ihm ist bereits das Princip der Paritdt,
d. It. der staatlichen Gleichberechtigung, beider c/iristlichen Confessionen enthatten.
Es ist anerkannt, dass kein Ort [Canton] den andern, dass auch die Eidgenossen-
schaft nicht einze/ne Orte zur Beibehaltung oder zur Abdnderung ihres christlichen
Glaubens zwingen diirfe. Die katholischen Stdnde verzichteten somit hierin den
reformirten qegeniiber ausdriicklich ax f die Festhaltunq des alien Rechtes des Mittel-
alters, icornach jede energische Ab>reic/umg run dem katholischen Glauben als em
Verbreclicn beliana'elt nnd der Krieg gegen die Ketzer als Pflicht angesehen ward.
Sie erkannten das Princip der Glaubens freiheit, welches ran den Reformirten zuerst
verkiindigt worden icar, nun den Heformirten Orten qegeniiber an, nahmen es aber
g/eicltzeitig auch fur sich aelber in Ansprnch. Und hinwieder gestanden die Refor-
mirten Stdnde die Folgerichtigkeit dicsex Sch/iisses ZH, nnd verzichteten darauf, die
Orte zur Annahme der Reformation zu ndthigen." Conip. the treaty of Ilanz, p. 139.

1 The treaty of peace is given l>v Bullinger, II. 185 sqq. and 212; by
Escher and Hottinger, in the "Archiv fiir schweizerische Geschichte und
Landeskunde," Zurich, 1827, vol. I. ; and by Bluntschli, I.e. II. 255-269
(comp. I. 323-331).

§ 43. THE FIRST PEACE OF CAPPEL. 173

forth to shed blood.1 We have sent back our foes with a
wet blanket. Their compact with Austria was cut to pieces
before mine eyes in the camp by the Landammann of Glarus,
June 26, at 11 A.M. . . . God has shown again to the
mighty ones that they cannot prevail against him, and that
we may gain victory without a stroke if we hold to him." 2

He gave vent to his conflicting feelings in a poem which
he composed in the camp (during the peace negotiations),
together with the music, and which became almost as popu
lar in Switzerland as Luther's contemporaneous, but more
powerful and more famous " Ein feste Burg" is to this day
m Germany. It breathes the same spirit of trust in God.3

" Do thou direct thy chariot, Lord,

And guide it at thy will;
Without thy aid our strength is vain,

And useless all our skill.
Look down upon thy saints brought low,
And grant them victory o'er the foe.

" Beloved Pastor, who hast saved
Our souls from death and sin,
Uplift thy voice, awake thy sheep

That slumbering lie within
Thy fold, and curb with thy right hand
The rage of Satan's furious band.

" Send down thy peace, and banish strife,

Let bitterness depart ;
Revive the spirit of the past

In every Switzer's heart :
Then shall thy church forever sing
The praises of her heavenly King."4

1 " Denn ivir uff blntvergiessen nit uszogen."

2 Opera, VIII. 310 sq/

3 Bullinger reports : " Dieses Lied wurde hernach weit und breit, auch an der
Fiirsten Hofen und in den Stadten von ^fltsic>s gesungen und geblasen." On the
other poems of Zwingli, see above, p. 44 sq.

4 This is a free version of H. White (from Merle D'Aubigne), with some
necessary changes. The original, in the Swiss German, was sung at the
Zwingli festivals in 1884, and, with great effect, at the unveiling of the Zwin
gli statue in Zurich, August, 1885. It is as follows : —

174 THE SYv^ISS REFORMATION.

§ 44. Between the Wars. Political Plains of Zwingli.

The 'effect of the first Peace of Cappel was favorable to the
cause of the Reformation. It had now full legal recognition,
and made progress in the Cantons and in the common terri
tories. But the peace did not last long. The progress
emboldened the Protestants, and embittered the Catholics.

The last two years of Zwingli were full of anxiety, but
also full of important labors. He contemplated a political
reconstruction of Switzerland, and a vast European league
for the protection and promotion of Protestant interests.

He attended the theological Colloquy at Marburg (Sept.
29 to Oct. 3, 1529) in the hope of bringing about a union
with the German Lutherans against the common foe at Rome.
But Luther refused his hand of fellowship, and would not
tolerate a theory of the Lord's Supper which he regarded as
a dangerous heresy.1

While at Marburg, Zwingli made the personal acquaintance
of the Landgraf, Philip of Hesse, arid the fugitive Duke
LTlrich of Wiirtemberg, who admired him, and sympathized
with his theology as far as they understood it, but cared still
more for their personal and political interests. He conceived
with them the bold idea of a politico-ecclesiastical alliance of
Protestant states and cities for the protection of religious
liberty against the combined forces of the papacy and the
empire which threatened that liberty. Charles V. had made
peace with Clement VII., June 29, 1529, and crossed the

" Herr, nun heb den Wagen &elV ! Wiedrum enveck,

Schelb [schief\ wird siist [sonst] Die dich

All unser Fahrt. Lieb haben inniglicli I
Das brdcht Lust

Der JFiderpart, Hilf, dass alle Bitterkeit

Die dich Scheide feer [fern],

Veracht so freventlich. Und alte Treu

Wiederkeer

Gott, erhoch den Namen dyn Unde werde neu :

In der Straf Dass wir

Der bosen Bock ! Eivig lobsingen Dir*'
Dyne Schaaf

i See vol. VI. 629-653.

§ 44. BETWEEN THE WARS. 175

Alps in May, 1530, on his way to the Diet of Augsburg,
offering to the Protestants bread with one hand, but conceal
ing a stone in the other. Zwingli carried on a secret corre
spondence with Philip of Hesse from April 22, 1529, till
Sept. 10, 1531. : He saw in the Roman empire the natural
ally of the Roman papacy, and would not have lamented its
overthrow.2 Being a republican Swiss, he did not share in
the loyal reverence of the monarchical Germans for their
emperor. But all he could reasonably aim at was to curb
the dangerous power of the emperor by strengthening the
Protestant alliance. Further he did not go.3

He tried to draw into this alliance the republic of Venice
and the kingdom of France, but failed. These powers were
jealous of the grasping ambition of the house of Habsburg,
but had no sympathy with evangelical reform. Francis I.
was persecuting the Protestants at that very time in his own
country.

It is dangerous to involve religion in entangling political
alliances. Christ and the Apostles kept aloof from secular
complications, and confined themselves to preaching the ethics
of politics. Zwingli, with the best intentions, overstepped
the line of his proper calling, and was doomed to bitter dis
appointment. Even Philip of Hesse, who pushed him into
this net, grew cool, and joined the Lutheran League of
Smalcald (1530), which would have nothing to do with the
Protestants of Switzerland.

1 See vol. VI. 633 sq., and Max Lenz, Zwingli und "Landgraf Philipp, —
three articles in Brieger's " Zeitschrif t fur Kirchengeschichte," 1879.

2 " Quid Germanics cum Roma ? " he wrote to Conrad Som of Ulm in 15291
(Opera, VIII. 388). He reminded him of the German verse : —

" Papstthum und *Kaiserthum
Die sind beide von Rom."

3 " Von irgend einem Anschlag gegen den Kaiser" says Morikofer, II. 299,.
" war auch gar nie und von keiner Seite die Rede." Janssen, Geschichte des
deutschen Volkes, III. 218 sq., unjustly charges Zwingli and Zurich with
preaching open rebellion against the emperor, and attempting to replace him
by the ambitious Landgraf of Hesse.

1T6 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

§ 45. ZwinglVs Last Theological Labors. His Confessions

of Faith.

During these fruitless political negotiations Zwingli never
lost sight of his spiritual vocation. He preached and wrote
incessantly ; he helped the reform movement in every direc
tion ; he attended synods at Frauenfeld (May, 1530), at St.
Gall (December, 1530), and Toggenburg (April, 1531) ; he
promoted the organization and discipline of the Reformed
churches, and developed great activity as an author. Some
of his most important theological works — a commentary on
the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, his treatise on Divine
Providence, and two Confessions of Faith — belong to the
last two years of his life.

He embraced the opportunity offered by the Diet of Augs
burg to send a printed Confession of Faith to Charles V.,
July 8, 1530. l But it was treated with contempt, and not
even laid before the Diet. Dr. Eck wrote a hasty reply, and
denounced Zwingli as a man who did his best to destroy
religion in Switzerland, and to incite the people to rebellion.2
The Lutherans were anxious to conciliate the emperor, and
repudiated all contact with Zwinglians and Anabaptists.3

A few months before his death (July, 1531) he wrote, at
the request of his friend Maigret, the French ambassador at
Zurich, a similar Confession addressed to King Francis I., to
whom he had previously dedicated his " Commentary on the
True and False Religion " (1524). 4 In this Confession he

1 Ratio Fidei, etc., printed in Opera, vol. IV. 3-18, and in Niemeyer's Col-
lectio Confessionum (1840), pp. 10-35. For an analysis see Schaff, Cfi. Hist.,
vol. VI. 721-723, and A. Baur, Zwinyli's Theologie, II. 043 sqq.

2 Zwingli sent an answer to the German princes assembled at Augsburg,
dated Aug. 27, 1530. Opera, IV. 19-41.

3 The Anabaptists are condemned (damnant] in Art. IX., the Zwinglians
are disapproved (improbanf) in Art. X., of the Augsburg Confession. See
Melanchthon's Judicium de Zwinglii doctrina, written at Augsburg, July 25,
1530, in " Corpus Reform," II. 222 sq.

4 Christianas Fidei brevis et dara Expositio, in Zwingli's Opera, vol. IV. 42-
78, and in Niemeyer's Collectio, pp. 36-77. For a summary, see Schaff, Creeds
of Christendom, I. 368 sq., and Baur, I.e. II. 754-776.

§ 45. ZWINGLI'S LAST THEOLOGICAL LABORS. 177

discusses some of the chief points of controversy, — God and
his Worship, the Person of Christ, Purgatory, the Real
Presence, the Virtue of the Sacraments, the Civil Power,
Remission of Sin, Faith and Good Works, Eternal Life, — and
added an Appendix on the Eucharist and the Mass. He
explains apologetically and polemically his doctrinal position
in distinction from the Romanists, Lutherans, and Anabaptists.
He begins with God as the ultimate ground of faith and
only object of worship, and closes with an exhortation to the
king to give the gospel free course in his kingdom. In the
section on Eternal Life he expresses more strongly than ever
his confident hope of meeting in heaven not only the saints
of the Old and the New Dispensation from Adam down to
the Apostles, but also the good and true and noble men of all
nations and generations.1

This liberal extension of Christ's kingdom and Christ's
salvation beyond the limits of the visible Church, although
directly opposed to the traditional belief of the necessity of
water baptism for salvation, was not altogether new. Justin
Martyr, Origen, and other Greek fathers saw in the scattered

1 " Deinde sperandum est fore at videas sanctorum, prudentium,Jidelium, con-
stantium, fortium virtnosorum omnium, quicunque a condito mundo fuenmt, sodali-
tatem, catum ct contubernium. flic duos Adamos, redemptum ac redemptorem : hie
Abflum, Enoclium, Noachum, Abrahamum, Isaacum, Judam, Mosen, losuam, Gede-
onem, Samuelem, Pineam, Eliam, Elisceum, lesaiam ac deiparam Virginem de qua ille
jmecinuit, Davidem, Ezekiam, Josiam, Baptistam, Petrum, Paul urn : hie Herculem,
Theseum, Socratem,Aristidem,Anti<jonum,Numam, Camillum, Catones, Scipiones :
hie Ludovicum pium anteccssoresque tuos, Ludovicos, Philippos, Pipinos, et qnol-
cjuot in fide hinc migrarunt rnaiores tuos videbis. Denique non fnit vir bonus, non
erlt men$ sctncta, non est fidelis anima, ab ipso mundi exordio usque ad eius con-
summationem, quern non sis isthic cum deo visurus. Quo spectaculo quid l&tius,
quid amoenius, quid denique honorificentius vel cogitari poterit? Aut quo iustius
omnes animi vires intend imus quam ad huiuscemodi vitce lucrum?" (Oy^era, IV.
G5.) The selection of examples might have been more judicious, or better
be omitted altogether. It was this passage that so shocked Luther's churchly
feelings that he called Zwingli a heathen. Werke, XXXII. 399 sq. " Bos-
suet," says Michelet (X. 311), "cite ce passaqe pour en rire. Mais qui a un cozur
le retiendra a jamais." There are few Protestant divines who would not agree
with Zwingli as regards the salvation of unbaptized infants and pious heathen.

178 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

truths of the heathen poets and philosophers the traces of
the pre-Christian revelation of the Logos, and in the philoso
phy of the Greeks a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ.
The humanists of the school of Erasmus recognized a second
ary inspiration in the classical writings, and felt tempted to
pray : " Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis" Zwingli was a hu
manist, but he had no sympathy with Pelagianism. On the
contrary, as we have shown previously, he traced salvation
to God's sovereign grace, which is independent of ordinary
means, and he first made a clear distinction between the
visible and the invisible Church. He did not intend, as he
has been often misunderstood, to assert the possibility of
salvation without Christ. " Let no one think," he wrote to
Urban us Rhegius (a preacher at Augsburg), "that I lower
Christ; for whoever comes to God comes to him through
Christ. . . . The word, c He who believeth not will be con
demned,' applies only to those who can hear the gospel, but
not to children and heathen. ... I openly confess that all
infants are saved by Christ, since grace extends as far as
sin. Whoever is born is saved by Christ from the curse of
original sin. If he comes to the knowledge of the law and
does the works of the law (Rom. 2 : 14, 26), he gives evidence
of his election. As Christians we have great advantages by
the knowledge of the gospel." He refers to the case of
Cornelius, who was pious before his baptism; and to the
teaching of Paul, who made the circumcision of the heart,
and not the circumcision of the flesh, the criterion of the
true Israelite (Rom. 2 : 28, 29) .l

The Confession to Francis I. was the last work of Zwingli.
It was written three months before his death, and published
five years later (1536) by Bullinger, who calls it his " swan
song." The manuscript is preserved in the National Library
of Paris, but it is doubtful whether the king of France ever

1 Comp. the remarks on pp. 95 sqq., and Schweizer's Central dog men, I.
94 sqq. and p. 131 sq.

§ 46. THE SECOND WAR OF CAPPEL. 179

saw it. Calvin dedicated to him his Institutes, with a most
eloquent preface, but with no better success. Charles V. and
Francis I. were as deaf to such appeals as the emperors of
heathen Rome were to the Apologies of Justin Martyr and
Tertullian. Had Francis listened to the Swiss Reformers,
the history of France might have taken a different course.

§ 46. The Second War of Cappel. 1531.

EGLI : Die Schlacht von Cappel, 1531. Zurich, 1873. Comp. the lit. quoted § 42.

The political situation of Switzerland grew more and more
critical. The treaty of peace was differently understood.
The Forest Cantons did not mean to tolerate Protestantism
in their own territory, and insulted the Reformed preachers ;
nor would they concede to the local communities in the
bailiwicks (St. Gall, Toggenburg, Thurgau, the Rheinthal)
the right to introduce the Reformation by a majority vote ;
while the Ziirichers insisted upon both, and yet they pro
hibited the celebration of the mass in their own city and
district.' The Roman Catholic Cantons made new disloyal
approaches to Austria, and sent a deputation to Charles V.
at Augsburg which was very honorably received. The fugi
tive abbot of St. Gall also appeared with an appeal for aid
to his restoration. The Ziirichers were no less to blame for
seeking the foreign aid of Hesse, Venice, and France. Bitter
charges and counter-charges were made at the meetings of
the Swiss Diet.1

1 Bluntschli (who was a Protestant of Zurich) thinks that Zwingli and
Zurich were upon the whole more to blame. He says, I.e. I. 334: " Zwar
hatte darin Zwingli ein richtiges politisches Princip ausgesprochen, class im wirk-
lichen ernsten Conflict zwischen der innern Berechtigung und dem aussern, formellen
Recht am Ende dieses jener weichen miisse. Aber er hatte dieses Princip weder
richtig angewendet ; denn ein solcher Widerspnich lag in dem eidgenossischen Bun-
desrecht denn dock nicht oder lange nicht in dem angegebenen Masse ror, noch waren
die Mlttel, welche er vorschlug, urn ein vermeintlich besseres, well natiirlicheres Recht
herzustellen, zu rechtfertigen. Und musste ein gerechter Mann zugeben, dass die
Fiinf Orte anch ihre Stellung nicht rein erlnelten von Missbrauch, so war dock nicht
zu liingnen, dass damals aiif Seite der Stiidte und insbesondere Zurichs der Miss-

180 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

The crisis was aggravated by an international difficulty,
Graubiinden sent deputies to the Diet with an appeal for aid
against the Chatelan of Musso and the invasion of the
Valtellina by Spanish troops. The Reformed Cantons favored
co-operation, the Roman Catholic Cantons refused it. The
expedition succeeded, the castle of Musso was demolished,
and the Grisons took possession of the Valtellina (1530—32).

Zwingli saw no solution of the problem except in an honest,
open war, or a division of the bailiwicks among the Cantons
according to population, claiming two-thirds for Zurich and
Bern. These bailiwicks were, as already remarked, the
chief bone of contention. But Bern advocated, instead of
war, a blockade of the Forest Cantons. This was appar
ently a milder though actually a more cruel course. The
Waldstatters in their mountain homes were to be cut off
from all supplies of grain, wine, salt, iron, and steel, for
which they depended on their richer Protestant neighbors.1
Zwingli protested. "If you have a right," he said in the
pulpit, " to starve the Five Cantons to death, you have a right
to attack them in open war. They will now attack you with
the courage of desperation." He foresaw the disastrous
result. But his protest was in vain. Zurich yielded to the
counsel of Bern, which was adopted by the Protestant depu
ties, May 15, 1531.

The decision of the blockade was communicated to the
Forest Cantons, and vigorously executed, Zurich taking the

branch ihrer Stellung in eidgenossischen Dint/en grosser war, class somit die Stddte
sick durchaus nicht eigneten, als Vertreter der ' gottlichen Gerechtigkeit und Strafe.'
die Fiinf Orte ran ihren hergebrachten Recliten zu entsetzen. ^iuck in der aus-
icdrtigen Politik verliess Zwingli nun die Grundsiitze des eidgenossischen Rechtes,
die er selber vorher mit Nachdruck vertheidiqt hatte. Er ging in reformatoriscliem
Eifer Verbindungen ein und nalim an politischen Planen The!!, welclie den Frieden
und selbst die Existenz der Eidnenossenschaft gefi'dirdcn mussten."

1 Zurich was charged by Bern with an excess of passion, Bern by Ziirich
with an excess of prudence. In the language of Zwingli : —

" Bern klagt : Zurich ist zn hitzig,
Ziirich klagt : Bern ist zu witzig."

§ 46. THE SECOND WAR OF CAPPEL. 181

lead. All supplies of provision from Zurich and Bern and
even from the bailiwicks of St. Gall, Toggenburg, Sargans,
and the Rheinthal were withheld. The previous year had
been a year of famine and of a wasting epidemic (the sweat
ing sickness). This year was to become one of actual starva
tion. Old men, innocent women and children were to suffer
with the guilty. The cattle was deprived of salt. The Wald-
statters were driven to desperation. Their own confederates
refused them the daily bread, forgetful of the Christian pre
cept, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give
him to drink ; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire
upon his head. Be not overcome with evil, but overcome
evil with good" (Rom. 12 : 20, 21).

Zwingli spent the last months before his death in anxiety
and fear. His counsel had been rejected, and yet he was
blamed for all these troubles. He had not a few enemies in
Zurich, who undermined his influence, and inclined more and
more to the passive policy of Bern. Under these circum
stances, he resolved to withdraw from the public service. On
the 26th of July he appeared before the Great Council, and
declared, " Eleven years have I preached to you the gospel,
and faithfully warned you against the dangers which threaten
the confederacy if the Five Cantons — that is, those who hate
the gospel and live on foreign pensions — are allowed to
gain the mastery. But you do not heed my voice, and con
tinue to elect members who sympathize with the enemies of
the gospel. And yet ye make me responsible for all this
misfortune. Well, I herewith resign, and shall elsewhere
seek my support."

He left the hall with tears. His resignation was rejected
and withdrawn. After three days he appeared again before
the Great Council, and declared that in view of their prom
ise of improvement he would stand by them till death, and
do his best, with God's help. He tried to persuade the
Bernese delegates at a meeting in Bremgarten in the house

182 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

of his friend, Henry Bullinger, to energetic action, but in
vain. " May God protect you, dear Henry ; remain faithful
to the Lord Jesus Christ and his Church."

These were the last words he spoke to his worthy suc
cessor. As he left, a mysterious personage, clothed in a
snow-white robe, suddenly appeared, and after frightening
the guards at the gate plunged into the water, and vanished.
He had a strong foreboding of an approaching calamity, and
did not expect to survive it. Halley's comet, which returns
every seventy-six years, appeared in the skies from the middle
of August to the 3d of September, burning like the fire of a
furnace, and pointing southward with its immense tail of
pale yellow color. Zwingli saw in it the sign of war and of
his own death. He said to a friend in the graveyard of the
minster (Aug. 10), as he gazed at the ominous star, " It
will cost the life of many an honorable man and my own.
The truth and the Church will suffer, but Christ will never
forsake us." 1 Vadian of St. Gall likewise regarded the
comet as a messenger of God's wrath ; and the famous
Theophrastus, who was at that time in St. Gall, declared
that it foreboded great bloodshed and the death of illustrious
men. It was then the universal opinion, shared also by
Luther and Melanchthon, that comets, meteors, and eclipses
were fireballs of an angry God. A frantic woman near
Zurich saw blood springing from the earth all around her,
and rushed into the street with the cry, " Murder, murder ! "
The atmosphere was filled with apprehensions of war and
bloodshed. The blockade was continued, and all attempts
at a compromise failed.

The Forest Cantons had only one course to pursue. The

1 Bullinger, III. 46 (comp. 137) : " Min Jorg [the Abbot Georg Miiller of
Wettingen], nn'ch und mengen eeren man \_manchen Ehrenmann~\ wirt cs kosten,
nnd wirt die wahrheit und Kylch \_Kirche~\ nodt li/den; dock von Christus werdent
ii'ir nit verlassen." Another contemporary gives an account of a conversation
of Dr. Joachim von Watt with some friends about the meaning of the comet's
appearance. It was published in the " Schweizerische Museum," II. 335.

§ 46. THE SECOND WAR OF CAPPEL. 183

law of self-preservation drove them to open war. It was
forced upon them as a duty. Fired by indignation against
the starvation policy of their enemies, and inspired by love
for their own families, the Waldstatters promptly organized
an army of eight thousand men, and marched to the frontier
of Zurich between Zug and Cappel, Oct. 9, 1531.

The news brought consternation and terror to the Ziirichers,
The best opportunity had passed. Discontent and dissension
paralyzed vigorous action. Frightful omens demoralized the
people. Zurich, which two years before might easily have
equipped an army of five thousand, could now hardly collect
fifteen hundred men against the triple force of the enemy,
who had the additional advantage of fighting for life and
home.

Zwingli would not forsake his flock in this extreme danger.
He mounted his horse to accompany the little army to the
battle-field with the presentiment that he would never return.
The horse started back, like the horse of Napoleon when he
was about to cross the Niemen. Many regarded this as a
bad omen ; but Zwingli mastered the animal, applied the
spur, and rode to Cappel, determined to live or to die with
the cause of the Reformation.

The battle raged several hours in the afternoon of the
eleventh of October, and was conducted by weapons and
stones, after the manner of the Swiss, and with much bravery
on both sides. After a stubborn resistance, the Ziirichers
were routed, and lost the flower of their citizens, over five
hundred men, including seven members of the Small Council,
nineteen members of the Great Council of the Two Hundred,
and several pastors who had marched at the head of their
flocks.1

1 Bullinger, III. 130, gives the names. The total number of the slain and
mortally wounded Ziirichers was five hundred and fourteen, while the Five
Cantons lost only about eighty. The leaders of the army, Georg Giildli and
Lavater, escaped, and were charged, the first with treason, the other with
incompetency.

184 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

§ 47. The Death of Zwingli.

MORIKOFER, II. 414-420. — EGLI, quoted on p. 179. — A. ERICHSON : Zwingli' &
Tod und dessen Beurtheilung durch Zeitgenosen. Strassburg, 1883.

Zwingli himself died on the battle-field, in the prime of
manhood, aged forty-seven years, nine months, and eleven
days, and with him his brother-in-law, his step-son, his son-
in-law, and his best friends. He made no use of his weapons,
but contented himself with cheering the soldiers.1 u Brave
men," he said (according to Bullinger), "fear not! Though
we must suffer, our cause is good. Commend your souls to
God: he can take care of us and ours. His will be done/'

Soon after the battle had begun, he stooped down to con
sole a dying soldier, when a stone was hurled against his
head by one of the Waldstatters and prostrated, him to the
ground. Rising again, he received several other blows, and a
thrust from a lance. Once more he uplifted his head, and,
looking at the blood trickling from his wounds, he exclaimed :
" What matters this misfortune ? They may kill the body,
but they cannot kill the soul." These were his last words.2

He lay for some time on his back under a pear-tree (called
the Zwingli-Baum) in a meadow, his hands folded as in
prayer, and his eyes steadfastly turned to heaven.3

The stragglers of the victorious army pounced like hungry
vultures upon the wounded and dying. Two of them asked
Zwingli to confess to a priest, or to call upon the dear saints

1 "Zwingli blieb >'ii nachster Nahe bei den Kdmpfenden stchen, machte aber mtrJi
dem Zeugniss ron Frennd und Fcind von seinen Wiiffen kein<-n Gebrauch"
Morikofer, II. 417.

2 According to Osw. Myconius (Vita H. Zwingli, ch. 12), who gives the report
of an eye-witness : "Prostratum, ajebat, prementium multitudine jam tertio, sed in
pedes semper restitisse : quarro fixuni cuspide sub mento et in genna prolapswn
dixisse : ' Ecquid hoc infortnnii? Age, corpus quidem occidere possunt, animam non
possunt.' Atque his dictis mox obdormivisse in Domino."

3 Bullinger, III. 136: "und verharret mitt sinem Gesicht zu stnnen am hi/mel"
According to Tschudi, he lay on his face. Salat also says (" Archiv," etc.,
I. 310) : "Zwingli ward funden ligend uf sim angsicht." But this is not neces
sarily a contradiction, as the dying man may have changed his position.

§ 47. THE DEATH OF ZWINGLI. 185

for their intercession. He shook his head twice, and kept
his eyes still fixed on the heavens above. Then Captain
Vokinger of Unterwalden, one of the foreign mercenaries,
against whom the Reformer had so often lifted his voice,
recognized him by the torch-light, and killed him with, the
sword, exclaiming, " Die, obstinate heretic." l

There he lay during the night. On the next morning
the people gathered around the dead, and began to realize the
extent of the victory. Everybody wanted to see Zwingli.
Chaplain Stocker of Zug, Avho knew him well, made the
remark that his face had the same fresh and vigorous expres
sion as when he kindled his hearers with the fire of eloquence
from the pulpit. Hans Schonbrunner, an ex-canon of Frau-
miinster in Ziirich, as he passed the corpse of the Reformer,
with Chaplain Stocker, burst into tears, and said, " Whatever
may have been thy faith, tliou hast been an honest patriot.
May God forgive thy sins." 2 He voiced the sentiment of the
better class of Catholics.

But the fanatics and foreign mercenaries would not even
spare the dead. They decreed that his body should be
quartered for treason and then burnt for heresy, according
to the Roman and imperial law. The sheriff of Luzern
executed the barbarous sentence. Zwingli's ashes were
mingled with the ashes of swine, and scattered to the four
winds of heaven.3

1 Salat says that the man who did this cowardly act, was "ein redlicher alter
Christ," but does not name Vokinger (also spelt Fuckinger, or Fugginger).

2 Morikofer, II. 418.

3 According to an uncertain and improbable tradition, the heart was, as it
were, miraculously saved, and brought to Zurich, but thrown into the river
to prevent idolatry. Myconius ( Vita Zw., c. 12) reports : " Hostibus digressis,
post diem tertium accedunt amantes Zicinylii, si quid reliquiarum eius ojfcnderent,
et ecce cor (mirabile dictu*) se ojfert e mediis cineribus integrum et illsesum . . .
Venit non multo posted vir mihi notissimus, sed et familiar issimus [Thomas Plater ?],
rogans an portionein cordis cupiam i' id ere Zwingliani, quod secum ferat in loculo :
quia propter scrmonem hunc inopinatum horror quid am totum corpus pervaserat,
negaram, alioquin et huius rei possein esse testis ocidatus."

186 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

The news of the disaster at Cappel spread terror among
the citizens of Zurich. " Then," says Bullinger, " arose a
loud and horrible cry of lamentation and tears, bewailing and
groaning."

On no one fell the sudden stroke with heavier weight
than on the innocent widow of Zwingli : she had lost, on the
same day, her husband, a son, a brother, a son-in-law, a
brother-in-law, and her most intimate friends. She remained
alone with her weeping little children, and submitted in
pious resignation to the mysterious will of God. History is
silent about her grief ; but it has been vividly and touchingly
described in the Zurich dialect by Martin Usteri in a poem
for the tercentenary Reformation festival in Zurich (1819). 1

Bullinger, Zwingli's successor, took the afflicted widow
into his house, and treated her as a member of his family.
She survived her husband seven years, and died in peace.

1 Der armen Froiv Zicinglin Kfag, published in the " Alpenrosen/' Bern,
1820, p. 273 ; in Zwingli's Werke, II. B. 281 ; also in Christoffel, I. 413, and
Morikofer, II. 517. After giving vent to her woe, Anna Zwingli resorts to the
Bible, which was her husband's comfort, and was to be hers. I select the first
and the last of the fourteen stanzas of this poem, which Morikofer numbers
among "the imperishable monuments of the great man."

1. " O Herre Gott, wie heftig sliltiog

Mich dynes Zornes Ruthen ',
Da armes Herz, ist's nit gen nog,

Kannst du noch nicht verblnoten ?
Ich ring die Hand :
Kitm' doch myn End !

Wer mag myn Elend fassen ?
Wer misst die Not ?
Myn Gott, Myn Gott,

Hast du mich gar verlassen ?

14. " Komm du, o Enoch ! du warst syn Hort,

S>/n Trout in ftUem Uebcl.
Ward er rerfolgt mit That nnd Wort,

So griff er nach der Bibel,
Fand Hilf bei ihr.
Herr, zeige mir

Die Hilf in Jesu Xamen .'
Gib Muoth nnd Stark
Zum schu-eren Werk

Dem schwacJten Wybe ! Amen."

§ 48. REFLECTIONS ON THE DISASTER AT CAPPEL. 187

A few steps from the pear-tree where Zwingli breathed
his last, on a slight elevation, in view of the old church and
abbey of Cappel, of the Rigi, Pilatus, and the more distant
snow-capped Alps, there arises a plain granite monument,
erected in 1838, mainly by the exertions of Pastor Esslinger,
with suitable Latin and German inscriptions.1

A few weeks after Zwingli, his friend CEcolampadius died
peacefully in his home at Basel (Nov. 24, 1531). The
enemies spread the rumor that he had committed suicide.
They deemed it impossible that an arch-heretic could die a
natural death.2

§ 48. Reflections on the Disaster at Cappel.

We need not wonder that the religious and political ene
mies of Zwingli interpreted the catastrophe at Cappel as a
signal judgment of God and a punishment for heresy. It is
the tendency of superstition in all ages to connect misfortune
with a particular sin. Such an uncharitable interpretation
of Providence is condemned by the example of Job, the fate
of prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and the express rebuke of
the disciples by our Saviour in the case of the man born blind
(John 9 : 31). But it is found only too often among Chris
tians. It is painful to record that Luther, the great cham
pion of the liberty of conscience, under the influence of his
mediaeval training, and unmindful of the adage, De mortuis
nihil nisi bonum, surpassed even the most virulent Catholics
in the abuse of Zwingli after his death. It is a sad com-

1 Mrs. Meta Heusser (d. 1876), the most gifted Swiss poetess, who lived a
few miles from Cappel, wrote two beautiful poems for the dedication of the
monument, Oct. 11, 1838, which are printed in the first series of her Lieder,
pp. 189 sqq. I quote the first stanza of the second poem : —

" Die Statte, wo ein Heldenauge brack
1st theuer noch den spaten Enlcelsohnen ;
Es schweigt der Todtenklage banges Ach,
Verschlungen von des Sieges Jubeltonen."

2 See above, § 31, pp. 115 sq., and the note on p. 188.

188 THE SAVISS REFORMATION.

mentaiy on the narrowness and intolerance of the Re*
former.1

The faithful friends of evangelical freedom and progress
in Switzerland revered Zwingli as a martyr, and regarded the
defeat at Cappel as a wholesome discipline or a blessing in
disguise. Bullinger voiced their sentiments. " The victory
of truth," he wrote after the death of his teacher and friend,
"stands alone in God's power and will, and is not bound to
person or time. Christ was crucified, and his enemies imag
ined they had conquered ; but forty years afterwards Christ's
victory became manifest in the destruction of Jerusalem.
The truth conquers through tribulation and trial. The
strength of the Christians is shown in weakness. Therefore,
beloved brethren in Germany, take no offence at our defeat,

1 In his letter to Albrecht of Prussia, April, 1532 (in De Wette, IV. 348-
355), Luther expresses a doubt about Zwingli's salvation (on account of his
denial of the corporal presence), He scorns the idea that he was a martyr ; he
regrets that the Catholic Cantons did not complete their victory by suppressing
the Zwinglian heresy, and he warns the Duke of Prussia not to tolerate it in
his dominion. In his furious polemic tract, Short Confession of the Holy Sac
rament, written in 1545, a year before his death (Werke, Erlangen ed., vol.
XXXII. 399-401, 410), Luther says that "Zwingel" (he always misspells his
name) and CEcolampadius "perished in their sins "; that Zwingli died "in
great and many sins and blasphemy" (/» rjrossen und vielen Sunilcn and Gottes-
Idsternng) , having expressed a hope for the salvation of such " fjotthse Hei-
den " as Socrates, Aristides, and the "greuliche Numa " ; that he became a
heathen ; and that he perished by the sword because he took up the sword.
He adds that he, Martin Luther, " would rather a hundred times be torn to
pieces and burned than make common cause with Stenkefeld [Stinkfeld for
Schwenkfeld], Zwingel, Carlstadt, and CEcolampadius ! " 0 sancta simplicitas!
How different is the conduct and judgment of Zwingli, who, at Marburg, with
tears in his eyes, offered the hand of brotherhood to his great antagonist, and
who said of him in the very heat of the eucharistic controversy: "Luther is
so excellent a warrior of God, and searches the Scriptures with such great
earnestness as no one on earth for these thousand years has done ; and no one
has ever equalled him in manly, unshaken spirit with which he has attacked
the pope of Rome. He was the true David whom the Lord himself appointed
to slay Goliath. He hurled the stones taken from the heavenly brook so
skilfully that the giant fell prostrate on the ground. Saul has slain thou
sands, but David tens of thousands. He was the Hercules who rushed always
to the post of danger in battle. . . . Therefore we should justly thank God for
having raised such an instrument for his honor ; and this we do with pleasure.''

§ 48. REFLECTIONS ON THE DISASTER AT CAPPEL. 189

but persevere in the Word of God, which has always won
the victory, though in its defence the holy prophets, apostles,
and martyrs suffered persecution and death. Blessed are those
who die in the Lord. Victory will follow in time. A thou
sand years before the eyes of the Lord are but as one day.
He, too, is victorious who suffers and dies for the sake of truth.''1

It is vain to speculate on mere possibilities. But it is more
than probable that a victory of the Protestants at that time
would have been in the end more injurious to their cause
than defeat. The Ziirichers would have forced the Reforma
tion upon the Forest Cantons and all the bailiwicks, and
would thereby have provoked a reaction which, with the aid
of Austria and Spain and the counter-Reformation of the
papacy, might have ended in the destruction of Protestant
ism, as it actually did in the Italian dependencies of Switzer
land and the Orisons, in Italy, Spain, and Bohemia.

It was evidently the will of Providence that in Switzerland,
as well as in Germany, both Churches, the Roman Catholic
and the Evangelical, should co-exist, and live in mutual tol
eration and useful rivalry for a long time to come.

We must judge past events in the light of subsequent events
and final results. " By their fruits ye shall know them."

The death of Zwingli is a heroic tragedy. He died for
God and his country. He was a martyr of religious liberty
and of the independence of Switzerland. He was right in
his aim to secure the freedom of preaching in all the Cantons
and bailiwicks, and to abolish the military pensions which
made the Swiss tributary to foreign masters. But he had no
right to coerce the Catholics, and to appeal to the sword.
He was mistaken in the means, and he anticipated the
proper time. It took nearly three centuries before these re
forms could be executed.

1 Christoffel, I. 409. Comp. also the beautiful preface of Zwingli to the
history of the passion, in which he shows his readiness to die for Christ,
quoted by Morikofer, II. 415.

190 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

In 1847 the civil war in Switzerland was renewed in a
different shape and under different conditions. The same
Forest Cantons which had combined against the Reformation
and for the foreign pensions, and had appealed to the aid of
Austria, formed a confederacy within the confederacy (Son-
derbund) against modern political liberalism, and again en
tered into an alliance with Austria; but at this time they
were defeated by the federal troops under the wise leader
ship of General Dufour of Geneva, with very little blood
shed.1 In the year 1848 while the revolution raged in other
countries, the Swiss Diet quickly remodelled the constitu
tion, and transformed the loose confederacy of independent
Cantons into a federal union, after the model of the United
States, with a representation of the people (in the National-
rath^) and a central government, acting directly upon the
people. The federal constitution of 1848 guaranteed "the
free exercise of public worship to the recognized Confes
sions " (i.e. the Roman Catholic and Reformed) ; the Revised
Constitution of 1874 extended this freedom, within the limits
of morality and public safety, to all other denominations ;
Only the order of the Jesuits was excluded, for political
reasons.

This liberty goes much further than Zwingli's plan,
who would have excluded heretical sects. There are now,
on the one hand, Protestant churches at Luzern, Baar,
Brunnen, in the very heart of the Five Cantons (besides
the numerous Anglican Episcopal, Scotch Presbyterian, and
other services in all the Swiss summer resorts) ; and on
the other hand, Roman Catholic churches in Zurich, Bern,

1 The Swiss Sonderbunds-Krieg was an anticipation, on a small scale, of the
Civil War in the United States, though the causes were different. In both
cases the confederates rebelled against the federal government, and sought
the aid of their hereditary enemy ; the Swiss of the Catholic Forest Cantons
that of Austria, the Americans of the slave-holding Southern States that
of England. For a clear sketch of the Sonderbunds-Krieg, see Vuillemin.
Geschichte der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft (1882), pp. 517-537.

§ 48. REFLECTIONS ON THE DISASTER AT CAPPEL. 191

Basel, Geneva, where the mass was formerly rigidly pro
hibited.

As regards the foreign military service which had a ten
dency to denationalize the Swiss, Zwingli's theory has com
pletely triumphed. The only relic of that service is the
hundred Swiss guards, who, with their picturesque mediae
val uniform, guard the pope and the Vatican. They are
mostly natives of the Five Forest Cantons.

Thus history explains and rectifies itself, and fulfils its

promises.

NOTES.

There is a striking correspondence between the constitution of the old
Swiss Diet and the constitution of the old American Confederacy, as also
between the modern Swiss constitution and that of the United States. The
Swiss Diet seems to have furnished an example to the American Confederacy,
and the Congress of the United States was a model to the Swiss Diet in 1848.
The legislative power of Switzerland is vested in the Assembly of the Con
federacy (Bundesversammlung^) or Congress, which consists of the National
Council (Nationalrath*) or House of Representatives, elected by the people, —
one out of twenty thousand, — and the Council of Cantons (Standerath) or
Senate, composed of forty-four delegates of the twenty-two Cantons (two
from each) and corresponding to the old Diet. The executive power is exer
cised by the Council of the Confederacy (Bundesratli) , which consists of seven
members, and is elected every three years by the two branches of the legisla
ture, one of them acting as President (Bundesprasident) for the term of one
year (while the President of the United States is chosen by the people for
four years, and selects his own cabinet. Hence the head of the Swiss Con
federacy has very little power for good or evil, and is scarcely known). To
the Supreme Court of the United States corresponds the Bundesgericht, which
consists of eleven judges elected by the legislature for three years, and
decides controversies between the Cantons. Comp. Bluntschli's Geschichte des
Schweizerischen Bundesrechts, 1875 ; Riittimann, Das nordamerikanische Bundes-
staatsrecht verglichen mit den politischen JEinrichtungen der Schweiz, Zurich, 1867—
72, 2 vols. ; and Sir Francis O. Adams and C. D. Cunningham, The Swiss Con
federation, French translation with notes and additions by Henry G. Loumyer,
and preface by L. Ruchonnet, Geneva, 1890.

The provisions of the Federal Constitution of Switzerland, May 29, 1874,
in regard to religion, are as follows : —

Abschnitt I. Art. 49. " Die Glaubens- und Gewissensfreiheit ist unverletzlich.

Niemand darf zur Theilnahme an einer Religionsgenossenschaft, oder an einem
religiosen Unterricht, oder zur Vornahme einer religiosen Handlung gezwungen, oder
icegen Glaubensansichten mit Stnifen irgend ivelcher Art belegt werden. . . .

Art. 50. Die freie Ausiibung gottesdienstlicher Handlungen ist innerhalb der
Schranken der Sittlichkeit und der offentlichen Ordnung gewdhrleistet. . . .

192 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

Art. 51. Der Or den der Jesuiten und die ihm affiliirten Geselfschaften durfen
in keinern Theile der Scliweiz Aufnahme Jinden, und es ist ihren G^iedern jede
Wirksamkeit in Kirche and Schide untersagt."

The same Constitution forbids the civil and military officers of the Con
federation to receive pensions or titles or decorations from any foreign
government.

I. Art. 12. "Die Mitglieder der Bundesbehdrden, die eidgenossischen Civil-
und Jfiliiarbeamten und die eidgenossisc/ien He^riisentanten oder Kommissarien
durfen von auswdrtigen Eegierungen weder Pensionen oder Gehalte, noch Titel,
Geschenke oder Orden annehmen."

§ 49. The Second Peace of Cappel. November, 1531.

Besides the works already quoted, see WERNER BIEL'S account of the imme
diate consequences of the war of Cappel in the " Archiv fiir Sehweizer-
ische Reformationsgeschichte" (Rom. Cath.), vol. III. 641-680. He
was at that time the secretary of the city of Ziirich. The articles of the
Peace in HOTTIXGER, Schtreizergeschichte, VII. 407 sqq., and in BLUNT-
SCHM, I.e. II. 260-276 (comp. I. 332 sqq.).

Few great battles have had so much effect upon the course
of history as the little battle of Cappel. It arrested forever
the pa-ogress of the Reformation in German Switzerland, and
helped to check the progress of Protestantism in Germany.
It encouraged the Roman Catholic reaction, which soon
afterwards assumed the character of a formidable Counter-
Reformation. But, while the march of Protestantism was
arrested in its original homes, it made new progress in French
Switzerland, in France, Holland, and the British Isles.

King Ferdinand of Austria gave the messenger of the
Five Cantons who brought him the news of their victory at
Cappel, fifty guilders, and forthwith informed his brother
Charles V. at Brussels of the fall of "the great heretic
Zwingli," which he thought was the first favorable event for
the faith of the Catholic Church. The Emperor lost no time
to congratulate the Forest Cantons on their victory, and to
promise them his own aid and the aid of the pope, of his
brother, and the Catholic princes, in case the Protestants
should persevere in their opposition. The pope had already
sent men and means for the support of his party.

§ 49. THE SECOND PEACE OF CAPPEL. 193

The disaster of Cappel was a prelude to the disaster of
Miihlberg on the Elbe, where Charles V. defeated the Smal-
caldian League of the Lutheran princes, April 24, 1547.
Luther was spared the humiliation. The victorious emperor
stood on his grave at Wittenberg, but declined to make war
upon the dead by digging up and burning his bones, as he
was advised to do by his Spanish generals.

The war of Cappel was continued for a few weeks. Zurich
rallied her forces as best she could. Bern, Basel, and Schaff-
liausen sent troops, but rather reluctantly, and under the
demoralizing effect of defeat. There was a want of har
mony and able leadership in the Protestant camp. The
Forest Cantons achieved another victory on the Gubel
(Oct. 24), and plundered and wasted the territory of Zurich ;
but as the winter approached, and as they did not receive
the promised aid from Austria, they were inclined to peace.

Bern acted as mediator.

The second religious Peace (the so-called Zweite Lands-
friede') was signed Nov. 20, 1531,1 between the Five Forest
Cantons and the Ziirichers, on the meadows of Teynikon,
near Baar, in the territory of Zug, and confirmed Nov. 24 at
Aarau by the consent of Bern, Glarus, Freiburg, and Appen-
zell. It secured mutual toleration, but with a decided advan
tage to the Roman Catholics.

The chief provisions of the eight articles as regards relig
ion were these : -

1. The Five Cantons and their associates are to be left
undisturbed in their " true, undoubted, Christian faith " ;
the Ziirichers and their associates may likewise retain their
" faith," but with the exception of Bremgarten, Mellingen,
Rapperschwil, Toggenburg, Gaster, and Wesen. Legal tol
eration or parity was thus recognized, but in a manner which
implies a slight reproach of the Reformed creed as a depar-

1 It was concluded Nov. 16, but dated Nov. 20.

194 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

ture from the truth. Mutual recrimination was again pro
hibited, as in 1529.1

2. Both parties retain their rights and liberties in the

1 The following is the Swiss-German text of the first article (Bluntschli,
II. 271), which may be compared with the first article of the Peace of 1529
(see above, p. 171 sq.) : " Zum ersten sollent und wollent Wir, die von Zurich, unsre
getriiwe Hebe Eydgenossen von den V Orten [i.e. the Five Forest Cantons of the
old confederacy], dessglichen auch ihr lieb Mitburger und Landliit von Wallis
und alle ihre Mithaften, si syegent geistlich oder weltlich, by ihrem waaren ungez-
wyffleten, christen! ichen Glauben jetzt und hernach in ihren eignen Stddten, Landen,
Gebieten und Herrlichkeiten gdnzlich ungearguirt und ungedisputirt blyben lassen,
all boss Fund, Usziig, Gefdhrd und Arglist vermieden und hintangesetzt. — Hin-
widerum so ivollent Wir, von den V Orten, unser Et/dgnossen von Zurich und ihre
eigne Mitvencandten by ihrem Glauben auch blyben lassen. Wir von den V Orten
behaltend uns in diesem Frieden Inter vor alle, die uns sampt und sonders mit Burg
und Landrecht, auch in ander Wag verwandt sind, auch all die, so uns Hilf, Rath,
By stand und Zuzug bewiesen und gethan, also dass die harin luter mit uns begrijfen
und verfaszt syn sollent. — Hinwiederurn so behaltent Wir von Zurich uns vor,
das die, so uns Hilf, Rath, Bystand und Zuzug gethan vor und in disem Krieg
es sye in Abschlagung der Projiant oder in ander Weg, dass die auch in diesem
Frieden vergriffen syn sollent. — Wyter so behaltend Wir, von den V Orten uns vor
und durgent luter us, die us den fryen Aemptern im Ergo'uw, Bremgarten, und
Mellingen, so sich denen von Bern anhdngig gemacht, ihnen zuzogen, und, uns zu
iiberziehen, Vorschub gethan, dessglychen sie die Berner noch ufenthaltend, desshalben
ihnen viellichter der Frieden nit annehmlich syn, zudem unsser Nothdurft zu Usfuh-
rung des Kriegs gegen den Berneren will erf or der en , dass man dasselbst Durchzug
haben mocht, desshalb wir sie jetzmalen zu diesem Frieden nit beqriffen lassent.
Dessglychen behaltend Wir auch luter vor, die von Rapper schivyl, Toggenburg, Gas-
tern und die von Wesen, so unsser Eydgnossen von Zurich nutzit angahnt noch ver
wandt sind, dass die in disem Frieden auch usgeschlossen und nit begrijfen syn
sollent, doch dass nach Gnaden und in Ziemlichkeit mit ihnen gehandlet werd, mit
Strafoder mit Recht."

Bluntschli (I. 337) thus comments on this article : "Auch jetzt wieder musste
zundchst das Princip, dass beide Confessionen Geltung haben, das Princip der
Paritdt, den verschiedenen eidgenossischen Stdnden gegeniiber anerkannt werden.
Aber die Form, wie das geschah, war verletzend fur die Reformirten. Es lag darin
offenbar ein Hohn gegen diese, dass sie zu einem Vertrage ihre Zustimmung geben
mussten, in welchem der katholische Glaube als der ' reine, unbezweifelte, christliche
Glaube,' die Confession der Reformirten dagegen nur als ' ein Glaube,' schlechthin
bezeichnet ward; ein Spott, der immerhin von ungleicher Wiirdigung der beiden
Confessionen ausging und insofern dem wahren Geiste des paritdtischen Staatsprin-
cips widersprach. Diese Herabsetzunq und Demiithigung der Reformirten lag zwar
nur in dem Ausdruck, nicht in dem Inhalt dieser Bestimmung. Aber gerade darum
war sie um so weniger zu rechtfertigen. Sie reizte und erbitterte bloss den einen
Theil, und kitzelte nur den Hochmuth des andern Theils. Wollte man ernstlich und
iuf die Dauer Frieden, so durfte man nicht solcher Gehdssigkeit den Lauf lassen."

§ 50, THE ROMAN CATHOLIC REACTION. 195

common bailiwicks : those who had accepted the new faith
might retain it; but those who preferred the old faith should
be free to return to it, and to restore the mass, and the
images. In mixed congregations the church property is to
be divided according to population.

Zurich was required to give up her league with foreign
cities, as the Five Cantons had been compelled in 1529 to
break their alliance with Austria. Thus all leagues with
foreign powers, whether papal or Protestant, were forbidden
in Switzerland as unpatriotic. Zurich had to refund the
damages of two hundred and fifty crowns for war expenses,
and one hundred crowns for the family of Kaiser, which had
been imposed upon the Forest Cantons in 1529. Bern agreed
in addition to pay three thousand crowns for injury to prop
erty in the territory of Zug.

The two treaties of peace agree in the principle of tolera
tion (as far as it was understood in those days, and forced
upon the tAvo parties by circumstances), but with the oppo
site application to the neutral territory of the bailiwicks,
where the Catholic minority was protected against further
aggression. The treaty of 1529 meant a toleration chiefly
in the interest and to the advantage of Protestantism ; the
treaty of 1531, a toleration in the interest of Romanism.

§ 50. The Roman Catholic Reaction.

The Romanists reaped now the full benefit of their victory.
They were no longer disturbed by the aggressive movements
of Protestant preachers, and they regained much of the lost
ground in the bailiwicks.

Romanism was restored in Rapperschwil and Gaster. The
abbot of St. Gall regained his convent and heavy damages
from the city ; Toggenburg had to acknowledge his authority,
but a portion of the people remained Reformed. Thurgau
and the Rheinthal had to restore the convents. Bremgarten

196 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

and Mellingen had to pledge themselves to re-introduce the
mass and the images. In Glarus, the Roman Catholic minor
ity acquired several churches and preponderating influence
in the public affairs of the Canton. In Solothurn, the Refor
mation was suppressed, in spite of the majority of the popu
lation, and about seventy families were compelled to emigrate-
In the Diet, the Roman Cantons retained a plurality of votes.

The inhabitants of the Forest Cantons, full of gratitude,
made a devout pilgrimage to St. Mary of Einsiedeln, where
Zwingli had copied the Epistles of St. Paul from the first
printed edition of the Greek Testament in 1516, and where
he, Leo Jucke, and Myconius had labored in succession for
a reformation of abuses, with the consent of Diepold von
Geroldseck. That convent has remained ever since a strong
hold of Roman Catholic piety and superstition in SAvitzerland,
and attracts as many devout pilgrims as ever to the shrine
of the " Black Madonna." It has one of the largest printing
establishments, which sends prayer-books, missals, breviaries,
diurnals, rituals, pictures, crosses, and crucifixes all over the
German-speaking Catholic world.1

Bullinger, who succeeded Zwingli, closes his " History of
the Reformation " mournfully, yet not without resignation
and hope. " All manner of tyranny and overbearance," he
says, " is restored and strengthened, and an insolent regime
is working the ruin of the confederacy. Wonderful are the
counsels of the Lord. But he doeth all things well. To
him be glory and praise ! Amen."

NOTE ON THE CONVENT OF EINSIEDELN.
(Comp. § 8, pp. 29 sqq.)

On a visit to Einsiedeln, June 12, 1890, I saw in the church a number of
pilgrims kneeling before the wonder-working statue of the Black Madonna.
The statue is kept in a special chapel, is coal-black, clothed in a silver gar-

1 The firm of "Benziger Brothers, Printers to the Holy Apostolic See,"
Einsiedeln, New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago. The various illustrated cata
logues of this establishment give an idea of the immense extent of its operations.

50. THE KOMAN CATHOLIC REACTION.

19T

ment, crowned with a golden crown, surrounded by gilt ornaments, and holding
the Christ-Child in her arms. The black color is derived by some from the
smoke of fire which repeatedly consumed the church, while the statue is
believed to have miraculously escaped; but the librarian (Mr. Meier) told
me that it was from the smoke of candles, and that the face of the Virgin is
now painted with oil.

The library of the abbey numbers 40,000 volumes (including 900 incunab
ula), among them several copies of the first print of Zwingli's Commentary
on the true and false lieligion, and other books of his. In the picture-gallery
are life-size portraits of King Frederick William IV. of Prussia, his brother,
the Prince of Prussia (afterwards Emperor William I. of Germany), of Napo
leon III. and Eugenie, of the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria and his
wife, and their unfortunate son who committed suicide in 1889, and of Pope
Pius IX. These portraits were presented to the convent on its tenth centenary

THE ABBEY OF EINSIEDELN IN THE ISxn AND 16xn CENTURIES.

in 1861. The convent was founded by St. Meinhard, a hermit, in the ninth
century, or rather by St. Benno, who died there in 940. The abbey has now
nearly 100 Benedictine monks, a gymnasium with 260 pupils of twelve to
twenty years, a theological seminary, and two filial institutions in Indiana and
Arkansas. The church is an imposing structure, after the model of St. Peter's
in Rome, surrounded by colonnades. The costly chandelier is a present of
Napoleon III. (1865).

The modern revival of Romanism, and the railroad from Wiidensweil,
opened 1877, have greatly increased the number of pilgrims. Goethe says of
Einsiedeln : " Es muss ernste Betracktungen errer/en, dass ein einzelner Funke von
Sittlichkeit itnd Gottesfurcht hier ein immerbrennendes und leuchtendes F/ammchen
angeziindet, zu welchem glaubige Seel en mil grosser Beschwerlichkeit heranpilgern,
nm an dieser heiliqen Flamme auch ihr Kerzlein anzuziinden. Wie dem auch sei,
so deutet es anf ein qrenzenloses Bediirfniss der Menschheit nach gleichem Lichte,
gleicher Wiinne, icie es jener Erste im tlcfsten Gefuhle und sicherster Ueberzengung
gehegt und genossen."

198 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

For a history of Einsiedeln, see Beschreibung des Klosters und der Wallfahrt
Maria-Einsiedeln. Einsiedeln. Benziger & Co. 122 pp.

The wood-cut on p. 197 represents the abbey as it was before and at the
time of Zwingli, and is a fair specimen of a rich mediaeval abbey, with church,
dwellings for the brethren, library, school, and gardens. Einsiedeln lies in a
dreary and sterile district, and derives its sole interest from this remarkable
abbey.

§ 51. The Relative Strength of the Confessions in Sivitzerland.

We may briefly sum up the result of the Reformation in
Switzerland as follows : —

Seven Cantons — Luzern, Uri. Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug,
Freiburg, and Soluthurn (Soleur) — remained firm to the
faith of their ancestors. Four Cantons, including the two
strongest — Zurich, Bern, Basel, and Schaffhausen — adopted
the Reformed faith. Five Cantons — Glarus, St. Gall, Ap-
penzell, Thurgau, and Aargau — are nearly equally divided
between the two Confessions. Of the twenty-three subject
towns and districts, only Morat and Granson became wholly
Protestant, sixteen retained their former religion, and five
were divided. In the Grisons nearly two-thirds of the popu
lation adopted the Zwinglian Reformation; but the Protestant
gains in the Valtellina and Chiavenna were lost in the seven
teenth century. Ticino and Wallis are Roman Catholic.
In the French Cantons — Geneva, Canton de Yaud, and
Neuchatel — the Reformation achieved a complete victory,
chiefly through the labors of Calvin.

Since the middle of the sixteenth century the numerical
relation of the two Cl lurches lias undergone no material
change. Protestantism has still a majority of about half a
million in a population of less than three millions. The
Roman Catholic Church has considerably increased by immi
gration from Savoy and France, but has suffered some loss
by the Old Catholic secession in 1870 under the lead of
Bishop Herzog. The Methodists and Baptists are making
progress chiefly in those parts where infidelity and indiffer-
entism reign.

§ 52. ZWINGLI REDIVIVUS. 199

Each Canton still retains its connection with one or the
other of the two Churches, and has its own church establish
ment ; but the bond of union has been gradually relaxed,
and religious liberty extended to dissenting communions, as
Methodists, Baptists, Irvingites, and Old Catholics. The
former exclusiveness is abolished, and the principle of parity
or equality before the law is acknowledged in all the Cantons.

An impartial comparison between the Roman Catholic and
the Reformed Cantons reveals the same difference as exists
between Southern and Northern Ireland, Eastern and West
ern Canada, and other parts of the world where the two
Churches meet in close proximity. The Roman Catholic
Cantons have preserved more historical faith and supersti
tion, churchly habits and customs ; the Protestant Cantons
surpass them in general education and intelligence, wealth
and temporal prosperity ; while in point of morality both are
nearly equal.

§ 52. Zwingli Redivivus.

The last words of the dying Zwingli, " They may kill the
body, but cannot kill the soul," have been verified in his
case. His body was buried with his errors and defects, but
his spirit still lives; and his liberal views on infant salvation,
and the extent of God's saving grace beyond the limits of
the visible Church, which gave so much offence in his age,
even to the Reformers, have become almost articles of faith
in evangelical Christendom.

Ulrich Zwingli is, next to Martin Luther and John Knox,
the most popular among the Reformers.1 He moved in sym
pathy with the common people ; he spoke and wrote their
language ; he took part in their public affairs ; he was a
faithful pastor of the old and young, and imbedded himself
in their affections; while Erasmus, Melanchthon, GEcolam-

1 The German volksthumlich expresses the idea better than popular.

200 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

paclius, Calvin, Beza, and Cranmer stood aloof from the
masses. He was a man of the people and for the people, —
a typical Swiss ; as Luther was a typical German. Both
fairly represented the virtues and faults of their nation.
Both were the best hated as well as the best loved men of
their age, according to the faith which divided, and still
divides, their countrymen.

Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli have been honored by
a fourth centennial commemoration of their birth, — the one
in 1888, the other in 1884. Such honor is almost without a
precedent, at least in the history of theology.1

The Zwingli festival was not merely an echo of the Luther
festival, but was observed throughout the Reformed churches
of Europe and America with genuine enthusiasm, and gave
rise to an extensive Zwingli literature. It is in keeping with
the generous Christian spirit which the Swiss Reformer
showed towards the German Reformer at Marburg, that
many Reformed churches in Switzerland, as well as else-
where, heartily united in the preceding jubilee of Luther,
forgetting the bitter controversies of the sixteenth century,
and remembering gratefully his great services to the cause
of truth and liberty.2

In the following year (Aug. 25, 1885), a bronze statue was
erected to Zwingli at Zurich in front of the Wasserkirche
and City Library, beneath the minster where he preached.
It represents the Reformer as a manly figure, looking trust
fully up to heaven, with the Bible in one hand and the sword
in the other, — a combination true to history. Dr. Alexander

1 I say "almost." In 1880, five hundred years after the completion of
Wiclif's English Bible, his memory was celebrated throughout the English-
speaking Protestant world in five continents. The sixth centenary of Dante's
birth was celebrated in 1865 in Florence and all Italy. The last divine whose
centennial birthday was observed is Xeander, the Church historian. An
eloquent commemorative oration was delivered on that occasion by Dr. liar-
nack, his successor, in the Aula of the University of Berlin, Jan. 17, 1889.

2 See the literature on the Zwingli centennial in § 5, pp. 17 sq. and the
literature of the Luther celebration in vol. VI. 104 sq. and 730.

§ 52. ZWINGLI REDIVrVUS. 201

Schweizer, one of the ablest Swiss divines (d. July 3, 1888),
whose last public service was the Zwingli oration in the
University, Jan. 7, 1884, protested against the sword, and
left the committee on the monument. Dr. Konracl Ferdi
nand Meyer, the poet of the occasion, changed the sword of
Zwingli, with poetic ingenuity, into the sword of Vokinger,
by which he was slain.1 Antistes Finsler, in his oration,
gave the sword a double meaning, as in the case of Paul,
who is likewise represented with the sword, namely, the
sword by which he was slain, and the sword of the spirit
with which he still is fighting ; while at the same time it
distinguishes Zwingli from Luther, and shows him as the
patriot and statesman.

The whole celebration — the orderly enthusiasm of the
people, the festive addresses of representative men of Church
and State, the illumination of the city and the villages
around the beautiful lake — bore eloquent witness to the
fact that Zwingli has impressed his image indelibly upon
the memory of German Switzerland. Although his descend
ants are at present about equally divided between orthodox
conservatives and rationalistic " reformers " (as they call
themselves), they forgot their quarrels on that day, and cor
dially united in tributes to the abiding merits of him who,
whatever were his faults, has emancipated the greater part
of Switzerland from the tyranny of popery, and led them to
the fresh fountain of the teaching and example of Christ. 2

1 " flier das Schwert in nieiner Hand

1st das Schwert, das rnlcli erscJtl/H/."

2 See an account of that memorable celebration (which I witnessed myself)
in JSrinnerunf/sblatter zar Einweilnmq des Zwingli- Denkmals in Zurich. Heraus-
gegeben vorn Denkmal-Koruite. In 2 parts, Zurich, 1885. The chief address
was made by Antistes Finsler, the twenty-second successor of Zwingli. A
part of the celebration was a dramatic representation of Zwingli's death (a
historic tragedy by Charlotte Birch- Pfeiffer), and a banquet in the Tonhalle-
Pavilion, where addresses were delivered by delegates from different Cantons.
Zwingli's poem, " Iferr, nun heb den Waqen selbst," was sung with great spirit
by the Concordia. The Swiss poet, Dr. Meyer, wrote the Festcantate. The
statue was made by Natter, a Roman Catholic sculptor of Vienna, who attended
the unveiling. A significant fact.

M HEINRICUS BULINGEKU^S

PASTOR TiGixKiNU>5,

.SUCCESSOR

Obijf a: 15- > ^. die i ?•

ic vixi, vivo^meij nunc: ^lem^U^ librii1 :
Vf nunauam videar morfuus efl*e toni5.

202

CHAPTER VI.
THE PERIOD OF CONSOLIDATION.

§ 53. Literature.

Supplementary to the literature in § 4, pp. 12 sqq.

I. Manuscript sources preserved in the City Library of Zurich, which was
founded 1629, and contains c. 132,000 printed vols. and 3,500 MSS. See
Salomon Vogelin : Geschichte der Wasserkirche und der Stadtbibliothek in
Zurich. Zurich, 1848 (pp. 110 and 123). The Wasserkirche (capella
aquatica) is traced back to Charles the Great. It contains also the re
mains of the lake dwellings. The bronze statue of Zwingli stands in
front of it. The THESAURUS HOTTINGERIANUS, a collection of correspond
ence made by the theologian, J. H. Hottinger, 55 vols., embraces the whole
Bullinger correspondence, which has been much used, but never published
in full. — The SIMLER COLLECTION of 196 vols. fol., with double index of
62 vols. fol., contains correspondence, proclamations, pamphlets, official
mandates, and other documents, chronologically arranged, very legible,
on good paper. Johann Jacob Simler (1716-1788), professor and inspector
of the theological college, spent the leisure hours of his whole life in the
collection of papers and documents relating to the history of Switzerland,
especially of the Reformation. This unique collection was acquired by
the government, and presented to the City Library in 1792. It has often
been used, and, though partly depreciated by more recent discoveries, is
still a treasure-house of information. The Bullinger correspondence is
found in the volumes from A.D. 1531-1575. — ACTA ECCLESIASTICA inter-
mixtis politicis et politico- ecclesiastic! s MANUSCRIPTA ex ipsis fontibus hausta
in variis fol. Tomis chronologice pro administratione ANTISTITII TURICENSIS
in ordinem redacta. 33 vols. fol. Beautifully written. Comes down to
the administration of Antistes Joh. Jak. Hess (1795-1798). Tom I.
extends from 1519-1531; torn. II. contains a biography of Bullinger,
with his likeness, and the acts during his administration. — The State
Archives of the City and Canton Zurich.

IT. Printed works. JOH. CONR. FUSSLIN : Beytrdge zur Erlduterung der Kirchen-
Reformationsgeschichten des Schweitzerlandes. Ziirich, 1741-1753. 5 Parts.
Contains important documents relating to the Reformation in Zurich and
the Anabaptists, the disputation at Ilanz, etc. — SIMLER'S Sammlung alter
und neuer Urlcunden. Zurich, 1760. 2 vols. — JOH. JAK. HOTTINGER (Prof.
of Theol. and Canon of the Great Minster) : Helvetische Kirc.hengeschichten
vorstellend der Helvetiern ehemaliges Heidenthum, und durch die Gnade Gottes

203

204 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

gefolgtes Christenthum, etc. Zurich, 1698-1729. 4 Theile 4°. 2d ed. 1737.
A work of immense industry, in opposition to a Roman Catholic work of
Caspar Lang (Einsiedeln, 1692). The third volume goes from 1516 to 1700,
the fourth to 1728. Superseded by Wirz. — LUDWIG WIRZ : Helvetische
Kirchengeschichte. Aus Joh. Jak. Hottingers dlterem Werke und anderen
Quellen neu bearbeitet. Zurich, 1808-1819. 5 vols. The fifth volume is
by MELCHIOR KIRCHHOFER, who gives the later history of Zwingli from
1525, and the Reformation in the other Cantons. — JOH. JAK. HOTTINGER:
Geschichte der Eid'jenossen wahrend der Zeiten der Kirchentrennung. Zurich,
1825 and 1829. 2 vols. This work forms vols. VI. and VII. of Joh. von
Miiller's and Robert Glutz Blotzheim's Geschichten Schweizerischer Eidge-
nossenschaft. The second volume (p. 446 sqq.) treats of the period of
Bullinger, and is drawn in part from the Simler Collection and the
Archives of Zurich. French translation by L. VULLIEMIX : Histoire des
Suisses a I'e'poque de la lief or mail on. Paris et Zurich, 1833. 2 vols. —
G. R. ZIMMERMANN (Pastor of the Fraumlinster and Decan) : Die Zilrcher
Kir die von der Reformation bis znm dritten Reformationsjubilaum (1519-
1819} nach der ReiJienfohje der Zurcherischen Antistes. Ziirich, 1878
(pp. 414). On Bullinger, see pp. 36-73. Based upon the Acta Ecclesias-
tica quoted above. — JOH. STRICKLER'S Actensammlung, previously noticed
(p. 13), extends only to 1532.

On the Roman Catholic side comp. Archiv fur die Schiceiz. Reformationsgesch.,
noticed above, p. 13. The first volume (1868) contains Salat's Chronik
down to 1534; the second (1872), 135 papal addresses to the Swiss Diet,
mostly of the sixteenth century (from Martin V. to Clement VIII.), doc
uments referring to 1531, Roman and Venetian sources on the Swiss
Reformation, etc. ; vol. III. (1876), a catalogue of books on Swiss history
(7-98), and a number of documents from the Archives of Luzern and
other cities, including three letters of King Francis I. to the Catholic
Cantons, and an account of the immediate consequences of the War of
Cappel by Werner Beyel, at that time secretary of the city of Zurich
(pp. 641-680).

§ 54. ffeinrich Bullinger. 1504-1575.

I. Sources. BULLINGER'S printed works (stated to be 150 by Scheuchzer in

" Bibliotheca Helvetica," Ziirich, 1733). His manuscript letters (mostly
Latin) in the "Thesaurus Hottingerianus " and the " Simler Collection" of
the City Library at Zurich. — The second volume of the Acta Ecclesias
tics, quoted in § 53. — The Zurich Letters or the Correspondence of several
English Bishops and others with some of the Helvetian Reformers, chiefly from.
the Archives of Zurich, translated and edited for the "Parker Society" by
Dr. H. Robinson, Cambridge (University Press), 2d ed. 1846 (pp. 576).

II. SALOMON HESS: Leben Bullinger' s. Zurich, 1828-'29, 2 vols. Not very
accurate. — * CARL PESTALOZZI : Heinrich Bullinger. Leben und ausge-
wtihlte Schriften. Nach handschriftlichen und gleichzeitigen Quellen. Elber-
feld, 1858. Extracts from his writings, pp. 505-622. Pestalozzi has

§ 54. HEIXRICH BULLINGER. 205

faithfully used the written and printed sources in the Stadtbibliothek and
Archives of Zurich. — R. CHRISTOFFEL: H. Bullinger und seine Gattin.
1875. — JUSTUS HEER : Bullinger, in Herzog2, II. 779-794. A good sum
mary.

Older biographical sketches by Lumvio LAVATER (1576), JOSIAS SIMLER
(1575), "W. STUCKI (1575), etc. Incidental information about Bullinger
in Hagenbach and other works on the Swiss Reformation, and in MEYER'S
Die Gemeinde von Locarno, 1830, especially I. 198-210.

After the productive period of the Zwinglian Reformation,
which embraced fifteen years, from 1516 to 1531, followed
the period of preservation and consolidation under difficult
circumstances. It required a man of firm faith, courage,
moderation, patience, and endurance. Such a man was provi
dentially equipped in the person of Heinrich Bullinger, the
pupil, friend, and successor of Zwingli, and second Antistes
of Zurich. He proved that the Reformation was a work of
God, and, therefore, survived the apparent defeat at Cappel.

He was born July 18, 1504, at Bremgarten in Aargau, the
youngest of five sons of Dean Bullinger, who lived, like
many priests of those days, in illegitimate, yet tolerated,
wedlock.1 The father resisted the sale of indulgences by
Samson in 1518, and confessed, in his advanced age, from
the pulpit, the doctrines of the Reformation (1529). In
consequence of this act he lost his place. Young Henry was
educated in the school of the Brethren of the Common Life
at Emmerich, and in the University of Cologne. He studied
scholastic and patristic theology. Luther's writings and
Melanchthoivs Loci led him to the study of the Bible and
prepared him for a change.

He returned to Switzerland as Master of Arts, taught a
school in the Cistercian Convent at Cappel from 1523 to
1529, and reformed the convent in agreement with the abbot,
Wolfgang Joner. During that time he became acquainted

1 The bishop of Constance allowed priests to keep concubines for an an
nual tribute of four Rhenish guilders, called the Hurensold. See Christoffel,
Zwingli, II. 337, and Pestalozzi, p. 5.

206 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

with Zwingli, attended the Conference with the Anabaptists
at Zurich, 1525, and the disputation at Bern, 1528. He
married Anna Adlischweiler, a former nun, in 1529, who
proved to be an excellent wife and helpmate. He accepted
a call to Bremgarten as successor of his father.

After the disaster at Cappel, he removed to Zurich, and
was unanimously elected by the Council and the citizens
preacher of the Great Minster, Dec. 9, 1531. It was rumored
that Zwinglf himself, in the presentiment of his death, had
designated him as his successor. No better man could have
been selected. It was of vital importance for the Swiss
churches that the place of the Reformer should be filled by
a man of the same spirit, but of greater moderation and self-
restraint.1

Bullinger now assumed the task of saving, purifying, and
consolidating the life-work of Zwingli; and faithfully and
successfully did he carry out this task. When he ascended
the pulpit of the Great Minster in Dec. 23, 1531, many
hearers thought that Zwingli had risen from the grave.2 He
took a firm stand for the Reformation, which was in danger
of being abandoned by timid men in the Council. He kept
free from interference with politics, which had proved ruin
ous to Zwingli. He established a more independent, though
friendly relation between Church and State. He confined
himself to his proper vocation as preacher and teacher.

In the first years he preached six or seven times a week ;
after 1542 only twice, on Sundays and Fridays. He followed
the plan of Zwingli in explaining whole books of the Scrip-

1 Pestalozzi, p. 25 : " Zwingli und Bnllinger — welche Verschiedenheit ! Zwingli' 's
rasches, feuriqes Temperament, Bullinger's Ruhe und Gelassenheit ; Zwingli's
schneidender, stechender Witz, Bullinger's einldssliche Griindlichkeit ; daher auch
Zwingli's Kiirze, Bullinger's Ausfuhrlichlceit in den meisten seiner Arbeiten. Wit
geeignet zur gegenseitigen Ergdnzung ! "

2 " Talem concionem detonavit," wrote Myconius to Schenck, " ut multi puta-
rent Zwinglium non defunctum, sed ad Phcenicis modum renatum esse." Hottinger,
Jlelv. K. Gesch. III. 28.

§ 54. HEINRICH BULLINGER. 207

tures from the pulpit. His sermons were simple, clear, and
practical, and served as models for young preachers.

He was a most devoted pastor, dispensing counsel and
comfort in every direction, and exposing even his life during
the pestilence which several times visited Zurich. His house
was open from morning till night to all who desired his help.
He freely dispensed food, clothing, and money from his
scanty income and contributions of friends, to widows and
orphans, to strangers and exiles, not excluding persons of
other creeds. He secured a decent pension for the widow
of Zwingli, and educated two of his children with his own.
He entertained persecuted brethren for weeks and months in
his own house, or procured them places and means of travel.1

He paid great attention to education, as superintendent of
the schools in Zurich. He tilled the professorships in the
Carolinum with able theologians, as Pellican, Bibliander,
Peter Martyr. He secured a well-educated ministry. He
prepared, in connection with Leo Judae, a book of church
order, which was adopted by the Synod, Oct. 22, 1532, issued
by authority of the burgomaster, the Small and the Great
Council, and continued in force for nearly three hundred
years. It provides the necessary rules for the examination,
election, and duties of ministers (Predicanteii) and deans
(JDecani), for semi-annual meetings of synods with clerical
and lay representatives, and the power of discipline. The
charges were divided into eight districts or chapters.2

Bullinger's activity extended far beyond the limits of
Zurich. He had a truly Catholic spirit, and stood in corre
spondence with all the Reformed Churches. Beza calls him
" the common shepherd of all Christian Churches"; Pellican,
" a man of God, endowed with the richest gifts of heaven

1 See the beautiful description of Pestalozzi, pp. 153 sqq.

'2 There are copies of several editions of this book in the City Library at
Zurich, of 1532, 1535, 1563, etc. It is also printed in Sirnler's Sammlung alter
und neuer Urkunden, I. 25-73.

208 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

for God's honor and the salvation of souls." He received
fugitive Protestants from Italy, France, England, and Ger
many with open arms, and made Zurich an asylum of relig
ious liberty. He thus protected Celio Secondo Curione,
Bernardino Occhino, and Peter Martyr, and the immigrants
from Locarno, and aided in the organization of an Italian
congregation in Zurich.1 Following the example of Zwingli
and Calvin, he appealed twice to the king of France for
toleration in behalf of the Huguenots. Pie dedicated to
Henry II. his book on Christian Perfection (1551), and to
Francis II. his Instruction in the Christian Religion (1559).
He sent deputations to the French court for the protection
of the Waldenses, and the Reformed congregation in Paris.

The extent of Bullinger's correspondence is astonishing.
It embraces letters to and from all the distinguished Protes
tant divines of his age, as Calvin, Melanchthon, Bucer, Beza,
Laski, Cranmer, Hooper, Jewel, and crowned heads who
consulted him, as Henry VIII., Edward VI., of England,
Queen Elizabeth, Henry II. of France, King Christian of
Denmark, Philip of Hesse, and the Elector Frederick of the
Palatinate.

Bullinger came into contact with the English Reformation
from the time of Henry VIII. to the reign of Elizabeth,
especially during the bloody reign of Mary, when many
prominent exiles fled to Zurich, and found a fraternal re
ception under his hospitable roof. The correspondence of
Hooper, Jewel, Sandys, Grindal, Parkhurst, Foxe, Cox, and
other church dignitaries with Bullinger, Gwalter, Gessner,
Simler, and Peter Martyr, is a noble monument of the spiritual
harmony between the Reformed Churches of Switzerland and
England in the Edwardian and Elizabethan era. Archbishop
Cranmer invited Bullinger, together with Melanchthon, Cal
vin, and Bucer, to a conference in London, for the purpose

1 See above, p. 155, and the works of Meyer and Morikofer quoted there.

§ 54. HEINRICH BULLING'ER. 209

of framing an evangelical union creed ; and Calvin answered
that for such a cause he would be willing to cross ten seas.
Lady Jane Grey, who was beheaded in 1554, read Bullinger's
works, translated his book on marriage into Greek, consulted
him about Hebrew, and addressed him with filial affection
and gratitude. Her three letters to him are still preserved
in Zurich. Bishop Hooper of Gloucester, who had enjoyed
his hospitality in 1547, addressed him shortly before his
martyrdom in 1554, as his " revered father and guide," and
the best friend he ever had, and recommended his wife and
two children to his care. Bishop Jewel, in a letter of May
22, 1559, calls him his " father and much esteemed master in
Christ," thanks him for his " courtesy and kindness," which
he and his friends experienced during the whole period of
their exile, and informs him that the restoration of the
Reformed religion under Elizabeth was largely due to his
own "letters and recommendations"; adding that the queen
refused to be addressed as the head of the Church of Eng
land, feeling that such honor belongs to Christ alone, and
not to any human being. Bullinger's death was lamented in
England as a public calamity.1

Bullinger faithfully maintained the doctrine and discipline
of the Reformed Church against the Roman Catholics and
Lutherans with moderation and dignity. He never returned
the abuse of fanatics, and when, in 1548, the Interim drove
the Lutheran preachers from the Swabian cities, he received
them hospitably, even those who had denounced the Re
formed doctrines from the pulpit. He represents the German-
Swiss type of the Reformed faith in substantial agreement
with a moderate Calvinism. He gave a full exposition of
his theological views in the Second Helvetic Confession.

His theory of the sacrament was higher than that of
Zwingli. He laid more stress on the objective value of the

1 See the letters of Barlow to Simler (Bullinger's son-in-law) , and Bishop
Cox to Gwalter, in Zurich Letters, pp. 494 and 496.

210 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

institution. We recognize, lie wrote to Faber, a mystery in
the Lord's Supper; the bread is not common bread, but ven
erable, sacred, sacramental bread, the pledge of the spiritual
real presence of Christ to those who believe. As the sun is
in heaven, and yet virtually present on earth with his light
and heat, so Christ sits in heaven, and yet efficaciously works
hi the hearts of all believers. When Luther, after Zwingli's
ileath, warned Duke Albert of Prussia and the people of
Frankfort not to tolerate the Zwinglians, Bullinger replied
by sending to the duke a translation of Ratramnus' tract,
De corpore et sanguine Domini, with a preface. He rejected
the Wittenberg Concordia of 1536, because it concealed the
Lutheran doctrine. He answered Luther's atrocious attack
on the Zwinglians (1545) by a clear, strong, and temperate
statement ; but Luther died soon afterwards (1546) without
retracting his charges. When Westphal renewed the un
fortunate controversy (1552), Bullinger supported Calvin in
defending the Reformed doctrine, but counselled moderation.1
He and Calvin brought about a complete agreement on the
sacramental question in the Consensus Tigurinus, which was
adopted in 1549 at Zurich, in the presence of some members
of the Council, and afterwards received the approval of the
other Swiss Reformed churches.2

On the doctrine of Predestination, Bullinger did not go
quite as far as Zwingli and Calvin, and kept within the infra-
lapsarian scheme. He avoided to speak of the predestination
of Adam's fall, because it seemed irreconcilable with the jus
tice of the punishment of sin.3 The Consensus Grenevensis
(1552), which contains Calvin's rigorous view, was not

1 Apologetica Defensio, etc., February, 1556.

2 Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I. 471 sqq., and the literature there quoted.

3 In the Second Helvetic Confession, ch. VIII., he dismisses the curious
questions, "whether God would have Adam fall, or whether he forced him to
fall, or why he did not hinder his fall, and such like," and says that it is suffi
cient to know that God did forbid our first parents to eat of the fruit, and
punished them for disobedience.

§ 54. HEINKICH BULLINGER. 211

signed by the pastors of Zurich. Theodor Bibliander, the
father of biblical exegesis in Switzerland, and a forerunner
of Arminianism, opposed it. He adhered to the semi-Pelagian
theory of Erasmus, and was involved in a controversy with
Peter Martyr, who was a strict Calvinist, and taught in
Zurich since 1556. Bibliander was finally removed from his
theological professorship (Feb. 8, 1560), but his salary was
continued till his death (Nov. 26, 1564) .l

On the subject of toleration and the punishment of here
tics, Bullinger agreed with the prevailing theory, but favor
ably differed from the prevailing practice. He opposed the
Anabaptists in his writings, as much as Zwingli, and, like
Melanchthon, he approved of the unfortunate execution of
Servetus, but he himself did not persecute. He tolerated
Laelio Sozini, who quietly died at Zurich (1562), and Ber
nardino Occhino, who preached for some time to the Italian
congregation in that city, but was deposed, without further
punishment, for teaching Unitarian opinions and defending
polygamy. In a book against the Roman Catholic Faber,
Bullinger expresses the Christian and humane sentiment
that no violence should be done to dissenters, and that faith
is a free gift of God, which cannot be commanded or forbid
den. He agreed with Zwingli's extension of salvation to all
infants dying in infancy and to elect heathen ; at all events,
he nowhere dissents from these advanced views, and published
with approbation Zwingli's last work, where they are most
strongly expressed.2

Bullinger's house was a happy Christian home. He liked
to play with his numerous children and grandchildren, and
to write little verses for them at Christmas, like Luther.3

When his son Henry, in 1553, went to Strassburg, Wit-

1 A fuller statement in Schaff, Creeds, I. 474 sqq., and especially Schweizer,
Central-dogmen, I. 139, 258-292.

2 See above, p. 177 sq.

8 Some of these verses are still remembered in Switzerland. Specimens
in Pestalozzi, 315 sqq.

212 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

tenberg, and Vienna to prosecute his theological studies, he
wrote down for him wise rules of conduct, of which the
following are the most important: 1) Fear God at all times,
and remember that the fear of God is the beginning of wis
dom. 2) Humble yourself before God, and pray to him
alone through Christ, our only Mediator and Advocate.
3) Believe firmly that God has done all for our salvation
through his Son. 4) Pray above all things for strong faith
active in love. 5) Pray that God may protect your good
name and keep thee from sin, sickness, and bad company.
6) Pray for the fatherland, for your dear parents, benefac
tors, friends, and all men, for the spread of the Word of
God ; conclude always with the Lord's Prayer, and use also
the beautiful hymn, Te Deum laudamus [which he ascribes
to Ambrose and Augustin]. 7) Be reticent, be always
more willing to hear than to speak, and do not meddle with
things which you do not understand. 8) Study diligently
Hebrew and Greek as Avell as Latin, history, philosophy, and
the sciences, but especially the New Testament, and read
daily three chapters in the Bible, beginning with Genesis.
9) Keep your body clean and unspotted, be neat in your
dress, and avoid above all things intemperance in eating and
drinking. 10) Let your conversation be decent, cheerful,
moderate, and free from all uncharitableness.1 He recom
mended him to Melanchtlion, and followed his studies with
letters full of fatherly care and affection.2 He kept his parents
with him till their death, the widow of Zwingli (d. 1538),
and two of her children, whom he educated with his own.
Notwithstanding his scanty income, he declined all presents,
or sent them to the hospitals. The whole people revered the
venerable minister of noble features and white patriarchal
beard.

1 Pestalozzi, 588 sqq.

- The letters, pp. 595-617, are quite interesting. Plenry became pastor at
Zullikon, and afterwards of St. Peter at Zurich. He married a daughter of
Gwalter, who was a granddaughter of Zwingli.

§ 54. HEINRICH BULLINGEK. 213

His last days were clouded, like those of many faithful
servants of God. The excess of work and care undermined
his health. In 1562 he wrote to Fabricius at Coire : " I
almost sink under the load of business and care, and feel so
tired that I would ask the Lord to give me rest if it were
not against his will." The pestilence of 1564 and 1565
brought him to the brink of the grave, and deprived him of
his wife, three daughters, and his brother-in-law. He bore
these heavy strokes with Christian resignation. In the same
two fatal years he lost his dearest friends, Calvin, Blaurer,
Gessner, Froschauer, Bibliander, Fabricius, Farel. He re
covered, and was allowed to spend several more years in the
service of Christ. His youngest daughter, Dorothea, took
faithful and tender care of his health. He felt lonely and
homesick, but continued to preach and to write with the aid
of pastor Lavater, his colleague and son-in-law. He preached
his last sermon on Pentecost, 1575. He assembled, Aug. 26,
all the pastors of the city and professors of theology around
his sick-bed, assured them of his perseverance in the true
apostolic and orthodox doctrine, recited the Apostles' Creed,
and exhorted them to purity of life, harmony among them
selves, and obedience to the magistrates. He warned them
against intemperance, envy, and hatred, thanked them for
their kindness, assured them of his love, and closed with a
prayer of thanksgiving and some verses of the hymns of
Prudentius. Then he took each by the hand and took leave
of them with tears, as Paul did from the elders at Ephesus.
A few weeks afterwards he died, after reciting several Psalms
(51, 16, and 42), the Lord's Prayer, and other prayers, peace
fully, in the presence of his family, Sept. IT, 1575. He was
buried in the Great Minster, at the side of his beloved wife
and his dear friend, Peter Martyr. According to his wish,
Rudolph Gwalter, Zwingli's son-in-law and his adopted son,
wus unanimously elected his successor. Four of his succes
sors were trained under his care and labored in his spirit.

214 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

The writings of Bullinger are very numerous, mostly doc
trinal and practical, adapted to the times, but of little perma
nent value. Scheuchzer numbers one hundred and fifty
printed books of his. The Zurich City Library contains
about one hundred, exclusive of translations and new edi
tions. Many are extant only in manuscript. He wrote Latin
commentaries on the New Testament (except the Apoca
lypse), numerous sermons on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, the
Apocalypse. His Decades (five series of ten sermons each
on the Decalogue, the Apostles' Creed, and the Sacraments)
were much esteemed and used in Holland and England.
His work on the justifying grace of God was highly prized
by Melanchthon. His History of the Swiss Reformation,
written by his own hand, in two folio volumes, has been
published in 1838-'40, in three volumes. His most important
doctrinal work is the Second Helvetic Confession, which
acquired symbolical authority.1

§ 55. Antistes Breitinger (1575-1645).

In the same year in which Bullinger died (1575), Johann
Jakob Breitinger was born, who became his worthy successor
as Antistes of Zurich (1613-1645). 2 He called him a saint,
and followed his example. He was one of the most eminent
Reformed divines of his age. Thoroughly trained in the
universities of Herborn, Marburg, Franeker, Heidelberg, and
Basel, he gained the esteem and affection of his fellow-
citizens as teacher, preacher, and devoted pastor. During
the fearful pestilence of 1611 he visited the sick from morn
ing till night at the risk of his life.

He attended as one of the Swiss delegates the Synod of

1 Extracts from Bullinger's Works are given by Pestalozzi, 505-622.

2 The immediate successors of Bullinger were Gwalter, Zwingli's son-in-
law (1575-1586), Lavater (1585-1586), Stumpf (1582-1592), Leemann (1592-
1613).

, § 56. OSWALD MYCONIUS. 215

Dort (1618 and 1619). He was deeply impressed with the
learning, wisdom, and piety of that body, and fully agreed
with its unjust and intolerant treatment of the Arminians.1
On his return (May 21, 1619) he was welcomed by sixty-four
Ziirichers, who rode to the borders of the Rhine to meet him.
Yet, with all his firmness of conviction, he was opposed to
confessional polemics in an intensely polemic age, and admired
the good traits in other churches and sects, even the Jesuits.
He combined with strict orthodoxy a cheerful temper, a
generous heart, and active piety. He had an open ear for
appeals from the poor and the numerous sufferers in the
murder of the Valtellina (1620) and during the Thirty
Years' War. At his request, hospitals and orphan houses
were founded and collections raised, which in the Minster
alone, during eight years (1618-1628), exceeded fifty thou
sand pounds. He was in every way a model pastor, model
churchman, and model statesman. Although he towered
high above his colleagues, he disarmed envy and jealousy by
his kindliness and Christian humility. Altogether he shines
next to Zwingli and Bullinger as the most influential and
useful Antistes of the Reformed Church of Zurich.2

§ 56. Oswald Myconius, Antistes of Basel.

I. Correspondence between MYCONIUS and ZWINGLI in Zwingli's Opera, vols.

VII. and VIII. (28 letters of the former and 20 of the latter). — Corre
spondence with Bullinger in the Simler Collection. — Antiqu. Gernl, I. —
The Chronicle of FRIDOLIN RYFF, ed. by W. Vischer (son), in the Easier
Chroniken (vol. 1, Leipzig, 1872), extends from 1514 to 1541.

II. MELCHIOR KIRCHOFER (of Schaffhausen) : Oswald Myconius, Antistes der
Baslerischen Kirche. Ziirich, 1813 (pp. 387). Still very serviceable.—
R. HAGENBACH : Joh. Oecolampad und Oswald Myconius, die Reformatoren
Easels. Elberfeld, 1859 (pp. 309-462). Also his Geschichte der ersten Easier
Confession. Basel, 1828. — B. RIGGENBACH, in Herzog2, X. 403-405.

1 Comp. Schweizer, Centraldogmen, II. 26, 116 sq., 140 sq., 143.

2 J. C. Morikofer (author of the Life of Zwingli'}, Johann Jakob Ereitinger
Leipzig, 1873. Karl Meyer, in Herzog2, II. 597.

216 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

Oswald Myconius (1488-1552), l a native of Luzern, an
intimate friend of Zwingli, and successor of (Ecolampadius,
was to the Church of Basel what Bullinger was to the Church
of Zurich, — a faithful preserver of the Reformed religion, —
but in a less difficult position and more limited sphere of
usefulness. He spent his earlier life as classical teacher in
Basel, Zurich, Luzern, Einsiedeln, and again in Zurich. His
pupil, Thomas Plater, speaks highly of his teaching ability
and success. Erasmus honored him with his friendship before
he fell out with the Reformation.2

After the death of Zwingli and (Ecolampadius, he moved
to Basel as pastor of St. Alban (Dec. 22, 1531), and was
elected Antistes or chief pastor of the Church of that city,
and professor of New Testament exegesis in the university
(August, 1532). He was not ordained, and had no academic
degree, and refused to take one because Christ had forbidden
his disciples to be called Rabbi (Matt. 23:8).3 He carried
out the views of CEcolampadius on discipline, and maintained
the independence of the Church in its relation to the State
and the university. He had to suffer much opposition from
Carlstadt, who, by his recommendation, became professor of
theology in Basel (1534), and ended there his restless life

1 His proper name was Geisshiissler. He is to be distinguished from Fried-
rich Myconius (Mecum), who was a friend of Luther and superintendent of
Gotha (d. 1540).

2 In a letter of Oct. 5, 1532, Erasmus called Myconius a "homo ineptus et
quondam ludimaglster frigidus." Epist. 1233. See Hagenbach. Oekol. und
J\f i/con., p. 329 sq. and 339, where he remarks: " Und docJi Iiatte Erasmus diesen
Einfaltspinsel von Schulmeister fr'dher seines Umgangs gewurdigt und ihn ror Virlen
ausgezeichnet ! Aber der gramliche Mann war jetzt qcqen alles erbittert, icas mit
der von ihm verkannten und gehassten Reformation in Verbindung stand und glaubte
sich, vom alien Ruhme seines Namens zehrend, berechtiyt, seinem Unwillen jeden
bcliebigen AusdrncJc zu geben."

3 Hagenbach (341) : "Myconius hatte keine kirchliche Ordination erhalten, noch
viel weniger etwas von dem was man einen akademischen Grad nennt. JEr war
weder Baccalaureus, nodi Licentiat, noch Magister, noch Doctor geworden." Luther
was proud to be a doctor of divinity; but Melanchthon and Zwingli were
satisfied with their M.A. Calvin, like Myconius, was never ordained, as far as
we know, although he was intended for the priesthood.

§ 56. OSWALD MYCONIUS. 217

(1541). He took special interest in the higher and lower
schools. He showed hospitality to the numerous Protestants
from France who, like Farel and Calvin, sought a temporary
refuge in Basel. The English martyrologist, John Foxe, fled
from the Marian persecution to Basel, finished and published
there the first edition of his Book of Martyrs (1554).

On the doctrine of the Eucharist, Myconius, like Calvin
after him, occupied a middle ground between Zwingli and
Luther. He aided Bucer in his union movement which
resulted in the adoption of the Wittenberg Concordia and
a temporary conciliation of Luther with the Swiss (1536).
He was suspected by the Ziirichers of leaning too much to
the Lutheran side, but he never admitted the corporal pres
ence and oral manducation ; he simply emphasized more than
Zwingli the spiritual real presence and fruition of the body
and blood of Christ. He thought that Luther and Zwingli
had misunderstood each other.1

Myconius matured, on the basis of a draft of CEcolampa-
dius, the First Basel Confession of Faith, which was adopted
by the magistracy, Jan. 21, 1534, and also by the neighboring
city of Miihlhausen.2 It is very simple, and consists of twelve
Articles, on God (the trinity), man, providence, Christ, the
Church and sacraments, the Lord's Supper, the ban, the civil
government, faith and good works, the last judgment, feasts,
fasts, and celibacy, and the Anabaptists (condemning their

1 Hagenbach (359) : "Was Zioingli vernei.nt hatte, das verneinte anch er [J/y-
connts'] fortwdhrend. Nie hdtte er zugegeben, dass Leib imd Blut C/iristi Hirer
leiblichen Snbstanz nach in den Elementen des Abendmahls vorhanden seien ; nie
zugegeben, dass sie auch von den Ungldubigen genossen werden. Was dagegen
Zwingli mehr zugegeben, als in den Vordergrund gestellt hatte, den geistiichen
Genuss durch den Glauben, das hob er mit Nachdruck hervor. Mit gutem Gewinsen
glaubte er in den Fusstapfen seines Meisters fortzuivandeln, der so redlich und tapfer
in Marburg die Hand zum Frieden geboten hatte."

2 Bekanthnuss unseres heyl. christenlichen Gloubens, icie es die Kylch von Basel
haldt ; also called Confessio Muhlhusana. In Niemeyer's Collectio Confess.,
78-84; and in Hagenbach's biography at the end, pp. 405-476. Comp. also
his History of that Confession, and Schaff, Creeds, I. 387 sq.

218 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

views on infant baptism, the oath, and civil government).
It is written in Swiss-German, with marginal Scripture refer
ences and notes. It claims no infallibility or binding author
ity, and concludes with the words : " We submit this our
confession to the judgment of the divine Scriptures, and are
always ready, if we can be better informed from them, very
thankfully to obey God and his holy Word."

This Confession was superseded by maturer statements of
the Reformed faith, but retained a semi-symbolical authority
in the Church of Basel, as a venerable historical document.

Myconius wrote the first biography of Zwingli in twelve
short chapters (1532). 1 His other writings are not important.2

One of his most influential successors was Lukas Gernler,
who presided as Antistes over the Church of Basel from 1656
to 1675. He formulated the scholastic system of Calvinism,
with many subtle definitions and distinctions, in a Syllabus
of 588 Theses. In connection with John Henry Heidegger
of Zurich and the elder Turretin of Geneva, he prepared the
Helvetic Consensus Formula, the last and the most rigid of
Calvinistic symbols (1675). He was the last representative
of strict Calvinistic orthodoxy in Basel. He combined with
an intolerant creed a benevolent heart, and induced the
magistracy of Basel to found an orphan asylum. The famous
Hebrew and Talmudic scholars, John Buxtorf (1564-1629),
his son, John (1599-1664), and his grandson, John Jacob
(1645-1704), who adorned the university of Basel in the
seventeenth century, fully agreed with the doctrinal position
of Gernler, and defended even the rabbinical tradition of the
literal inspiration of the Masoretic text against Louis Cappel,
who attacked it with great learning (1650). 3

1 It was reprinted at Berlin, 1841, in Vitce Quatuor Reformatorum, with a
Preface of Neander.

2 See extracts in Hagenbach's biography, pp. 387-462.

3 See Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I. 477 sqq.

§ 57. THE HELVETIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH. 219

§ 57. The Helvetic Confessions of Faith.

NIEMETER: Collectio Confess. (Hall. 1840), pp. 105-122 (Conf. Helv. prior,
German and Latin), and 462-536 (Conf. Helv. posterior). — SCHAFF :
Creeds of Christendom (New York, 6th ed. 1890), vol. I. 388-420 (history) ;
III. 211-307 (First and Second Helv. Conf.), 831-909 (Second Helv.
Conf. in English). Other literature quoted by Schaff, I. 385 and 399.

Bullinger and Myconius authoritatively formulated the
doctrines of the Reformed Churches in Switzerland, and
impressed upon them a strongly evangelical character, with
out the scholastic subtleties of a later period.

The Sixty-seven Conclusions and the two private Confes
sions of Zwingli (to Charles V., and Francis I.) were not
intended to be used as public creeds, and never received the
sanction of the Church. The Ten Theses of Bern (1528),
the First Confession of Basel (1534), the Zurich Consensus
(1549), and the Geneva Consensus (1552) were official doc
uments, but had only local authority in the cities where they
originated. But the First and Second Helvetic Confessions
were adopted by the Swiss and other Churches, and kept
their place as symbolical books for nearly three hundred
years. They represent the Zwinglian type of doctrine modi
fied and matured. They approach the Calvinistic system,
without its logical rigor.

I. THE FIRST HELVETIC CONFESSION, 1536. It is also
called the Second Basel Confession, to distinguish it from the
First Basel Confession of 1534. It was made in Basel, but
not for Basel alone. It owes its origin partly to the renewed
efforts of the Strassburg Reformers, Bucer and Capito, to
bring about a union between the Lutherans and the Zwingli-
ans, and partly to the papal promise of convening a General
Council. A number of Swiss divines Tvere delegated by the
magistrates of Zurich, Bern, Basel, Schaffhausen, St. Gall,
Miihlhausen, and Biel, to a conference in the Augustinian
convent at Basel, Jan. 30, 1536. Bucer and Capito also
appeared on behalf of Strassburg. Bullinger, Myconius,

220 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

Grynseus, Leo Judse, and Megander were selected as a com
mission to draw up a Confession of the faith of the Helvetic
Churches, which might be used at the proposed General
Council. It was examined and signed by all the clerical and
lay delegates, February, 1536, and first published in Latin.
Leo Judse prepared the German translation, which is fuller
than the Latin text, and of equal authority.

Luther, to whom a copy was sent through Bucer, unex
pectedly expressed, in two remarkable letters,1 his satisfaction
with the earnest Christian character of this document, and
promised to do all he could to promote union and harmony
with the Swiss. He was then under the hopeful impressions
of the "Wittenberg Concordia," which Bucer had brought
about by his elastic diplomacy, May, 1536, but which proved,
after all, a hollow peace, and could not be honestly signed by
the Swiss. Luther himself made a new and most intemperate
attack on the Zwinglians (1545), a year before his death.

The First Helvetic Confession is the earliest Reformed
Creed that has acquired a national authority. It consists of
27 articles, is fuller than the First Confession of Basel, but
not so full as the Second Helvetic Confession, by which it
was afterwards superseded. The doctrine of the sacraments
and of the Lord's Supper is essentially Zwinglian, yet em
phasizes the significance of the sacramental signs and the
real spiritual presence of Christ, who gives his body and
blood — that is, himself — to believers, so that he more and
more lives in them, and they in him.

Bullinger and Leo Judge wished to add a caution against
the binding authority of this or any other confession that
might interfere with the supreme authority of the Word of
God and with Christian liberty. They had a correct feeling
of a difference between a confession of doctrine which may

1 One to Jacob Meyer, burgomaster of Basel, Feb. 17, 1537, one to the
Swiss Reformed Cantons, Dec. 1, 1537, in De Wette's ed., vol. V. 54 sqq. and
83 sqq.

§ 57. THE HELVETIC CONFESSIONS OF FAITH. 221

be improved from time to time with the progress of religious
knowledge, and a rule of faith which remains unchanged.
A confession of the Church has relative authority as norma
nonnata, and depends upon its agreement with the Holy
Scriptures, which have absolute authority as norma normans.

II. THE SECOND HELVETIC CONFESSION, 1566. This is
far more important than the first, and obtained authority
beyond the limits of Switzerland. In the intervening thirty
years Calvin had developed his theological system, and the
Council of Trent had formulated the modern Roman creed.
Bullinger prepared this Confession in 1562 for his private
use, as a testimony of the faith in which he had lived and
wished to die. Two years afterwards, during the raging of
the pestilence, he elaborated it more fully, in the daily expec
tation of death, and added it to his last will and testament,
which was to be delivered to the magistracy of Zurich after
his decease.

But events in Germany gave to this private creed a public
character. The pious elector of the Palatinate, Frederick III.,
being threatened by the Lutherans with exclusion from the
treaty of peace on account of his secession to the Reformed
Church and the publication of the Heidelberg Catechism
(1563), requested Bullinger in 1565 to prepare a full and
clear exposition of the Reformed faith, that he might answer
the charges of heresy and dissension so constantly brought
against the same. Bullinger sent him a manuscript copy of
his confession. The Elector was so much pleased with it that
he desired to have it translated and published in Latin and
German before the Imperial Diet, which was to assemble
at Augsburg in 1566 and to act on his alleged apostasy.

In the meantime the Swiss felt the need of such a Confes
sion as a closer bond of union. The First Helvetic Con
fession was deemed too short, and the Zurich Consensus of
1549 and the Geneva Consensus of 1552 treated only two
articles, namely, the Lord's Supper and predestination. Con-

222 THE SWISS REFORMATION.

ferences were held, and Beza came in person to Zurich to
take part in the work. Bullinger freely consented to a few
changes, and prepared also the German version. Geneva,
Bern, Schaffhausen, Biel, the Grisons, St. Gall, and Miihl-
hausen expressed their agreement. Basel alone, which had
its own confession, declined for a long time, but ultimately
acceded.

The new Confession was published at Zurich, March 12,
1566, in both languages, at public expense, and was for
warded to the Elector of the Palatinate and to Philip of
Hesse. A French translation appeared soon afterwards in
Geneva under the care of Beza.

In the same year the Elector Frederick made such a
manly and noble defence of his faith before the Diet at
Augsburg, that even his Lutheran opponents were filled with
admiration for his piety, and thought no longer of impeach
ing him for heresy.

The Helvetic Confession is the most widely adopted, and
hence the most authoritative of all the Continental Reformed
symbols, with the exception of the Heidelberg Catechism.
It was sanctioned in Zurich and the Palatinate (1566), Neu-
chatel (1568), by the Reformed Churches of France (at the
Synod of La Rochelle, 1571), Hungary (at the Synod of
Debreczin, 1567), and Poland (1571 and 1578). It was well
received also in Holland, England, and Scotland as a sound
statement of the Reformed faith. It was translated not only
into German, French, and English, but also into Dutch,
Magyar, Polish, Italian, Arabic, and Turkish. In Austria
and Bohemia the Reformed or Calvinists are officially called
"the Church of the Helvetic Confession," the Lutherans,
"the Church of the Augsburg Confession."

THIRD BOOK.

THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND,

THE CALVINISTIC MOVEMENT.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PREPARATORY WORK. FROM 1526 TO 1536.

§ 58. Literature on Calvin and the Reformation in French

Switzerland.

Important documents relating to the Reformation in French Switzerland
are contained in the Archives of Geneva and Bern. Many documents have
been recently published by learned Genevese archaeologists, as Galiffe, father
and son, Grenus, Revilliod, E. Mallet, Chaponniere, Fick, and the Society of
History and Archaeology of Geneva,

The best Calvin libraries are in the University of Geneva, where his MSS.
are preserved in excellent order, and in the St. Thomasstift at Strassburg.
The latter was collected by Profs. Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, the editors of
Calvin's Works, during half a century, and embraces 274 publications of the
Reformer (among them 36 Latin and 18 French editions of the Institutio),
many rare contemporary works, and 700 modern books bearing upon Calvin
and his Reformation. The Society of the History of French Protestantism
in Paris (54 rue des saints peres) has a large collection of printed works.

I. CORRESPONDENCE OF THE Swiss REFORMERS AND THEIR FRIENDS.

Letters took to a large extent the place of modern newspapers and pam
phlets ; hence their large number and importance.

* A. S. HERMINJARD : Correspondance des reformateurs dans les pays de langue
fran$aise, etc. Geneve et Paris (Fischbacher, 33 rue de Seine), 1866-'86,
7 vols. To be continued. The most complete collection of letters of the
Reformers of French Switzerland and their friends, with historical and
biographical notes. The editor shows an extraordinary familiarity with
the history of the French and Swiss Reformation. The first three volumes
embrace the period from 1512 to 1536; vols. IV.-VII. extend from 1536
to 1542, or from the publication of Calvin's Institutes to the acceptance

223

224 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

of the ecclesiastical ordinances at Geneva. For the following years to
the death of Calvin (1564) we have the correspondence in the Strassburg-
Brunswick edition of Calvin's works, vols. X.-XX. See below.

II. THE HISTORY OF GENEVA BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER THE REFOR
MATION :

JAC. SPON : Histoire de la ville et de Ve'tat de Geneve. Lyon, 1680, 2 vols. :
revised and enlarged by J. A. Gautier, Geneve, 1730, 2 vols.

J. P. BERENGER : Histoire de Geneve jusqu'en 2761. Geneve. 1772, 6 vols.

(GRENUS) Fragments biographiques et historiques extraits des registres de Geneve.
Geneve, 1815.

MEMOIRES et DOCUMENTS public's par la Societe d'histoire et d'arche'ologie de
Geneve. 1840 sqq., vol. I.-XIV.

FRANCOIS BONIVARD : Les chroniques de Geneve. Public's par G. Revilliod.
Geneve, 1867, 2 vols.

* AMEBEE ROGET (Professor at the University of Geneva, d. Sept. 29, 1883) :
Histoire du peuple de Geneve depuis la re' forme jusqu'a I' escalade. Geneve,
1870-'83. 7 vols. From 1536 to 1567. The work was to extend to
1602, but was interrupted by the death of the author. Impartial. The
best history of Geneva during the Reformation period. The author was
neither a eulogist nor a detractor of Calvin. — By the same: L'e'glise et
Vetat a Geneve du vivant de Calvin. Geneve, 1867 (pp. 91).

JACQ. AUG. GALIFFE : Materiaux pour fldstoire de Geneve. Geneve, 1829 and '30,
2 vols. 8°; Notices tje'ne'alogiques sur les families genevoises, Geneve, 1829,
4 vols. — J. B. G. GALIFFE (son of the former, and Professor of the
Academy of Geneva) : Besancon Hugues, libe'rateur de Geneve. Ilistorique
de lafondation de I'independance Genevoise, Geneve, 1859 (pp. 330) ; Geneve
historique et arche'ol., Geneve, 1869; Quelques pages d'histoire exact?, soft les
proces criminels intente's a Geneve en 1547, pour haute tralrison contre noble
Ami Perrin, ancien syndic, conseiller et capitaine-ge'ne'ral de la republique, et
contre son accusateur noble Laurent Meigret dit le Magnijique, Geneve, 1862
(135 pp. 4°) ; Nouvelles pages d'histoire exacte soit le proces de Pierre Ameaux,
Geneve, 1863 (116 pp. 4°). The Galiffes, father and son, descended from
an old Genevese family, are Protestants, but very hostile to Calvin and
his institutions, chiefly from the political point of view. They maintain,
on the ground of family papers and the acts of criminal processes, that
Geneva was independent and free before Calvin, and that he introduced
a system of despotism. "La plupart des faits racontes par le medecin Lyon-
nais" (J5o/s<ec), says the elder Galiffe (Notices gc'ne'alogiques, III. 547),
" sont parfaitement vrais." He judges Calvin by the modern theory of
toleration which Calvin and Beza with their whole age detested. " Les
veritable protestants genevois," he says, "e'taient ceux qui voulaient que chacun
Jut libre de penser ce que sa raison lid inspirait, et de ne faire que ce qu'elle
approuvait ' mais que personne ne se permit d'attaquer la religion de son pro-
chain, de se moquer de sa croi/ance, ou de le scandaliser par des demonstrations
malicieuses et par des fanfaronnades de superiorite' qui ne prouvent que la
fatuite' ridicule de ceux qui se nomment les e'lus." The Galiffes sympathize

§ 58. LITERATURE ON CALVIN, ETC. 225

with Ami Perrin, Frar^ois Favre, Jean Philippe, Jean Lullin, Pierre
Vandel, Michael Servet, and all others who were opposed to Calvin.
For a fair criticism of the works of the Galiffes, see La France Protes-
tante, II. 767 sqq., 2d ed.

III. THE REFORMERS BEFORE CALVIN:

* Le Chroniqueur. Recueil historique, et journal de VHelvetie romande, en Van 1535
et en Van 1536. Edited by L. Vulliemin, 1835. Lausanne (Marc Duclos),
326 pp. 4°. Descriptions and reprints of documents relating to the religious
condition in those two years, in the form of a contemporary journal.

MELCHIOR KIRCHHOFER (of SchafFhausen, 1773-1853) : Das Leben Wilhelm
Farels aus den Quellen bearbeitet. Zurich, 1831 and '33, 2 vols. (pp. 251
and 190, no index). Very good for that time. He also wrote biographies
of Haller, Hofmeister, Myconius.

CH. CHENEVIERE : Farel, Froment, Viret, reformateurs relig. Geneve, 1835.

H. JAQUEMOT : Viret, re'formateur de Lausanne. Strassburg, 1856.

F. GODET (Professor and Pastor in Neuchatel) : Histoire de la reformation et
du refuge dans le pays de Neuchatel. Neuchatel, 1859 (209 pp.). Chiefly
devoted to the labors of Farel, but carries the history down to the immi
gration of French refugees after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

C. SCHMIDT (of Strassburg) : Wilhelm Farel und Peter Viret. Nach hand-
schriftlichen und gleichzeitigen Quellen. Elberfeld, 1860. (In vol. IX. of
the " Leben und ausgewiihlte Schrif ten der Vater der reform. Kirche.")

T. CART : Pierre Viret, le re'formateur vaudois. Lausanne, 1864.

C. JUXOD : Farel, re'formateur de la Siuisse romande et re'formateur de Veglise de
Neuchatel. Neuchatel et Paris, 1865.

IV. WORKS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN CALVIN :

JOH. CALVINI : Opera quce supersunt omnia, ed. G. Baum, E. Cunitz, E. Reuss,
theologi Argentoratenses. Brunsvigas, 1863 sqq. (in the Corp. Reform.'). So
far (1892) 48 vols. 4°. The most complete and most critical edition.
The three editors died before the completion of their work, but left mate
rial for the remaining volumes (vols. 45 sqq.) which are edited by Alf.
Erichson.

Older Latin edd., Geneva, 1617, 7 vols. folio, and Amstelod., 1667-71, in 9 vols.
folio. Separate Latin editions of the Institutes, by Tholuck (Berlin, 1834
and '46), and of the Commentaries on Genesis by Hengstenberg (Berlin,
1838), on the Psalms (Berlin, 1830-'34), and the New Testament, except
the Apocalypse (1833-'38, in 7 vols.), by Tholuck. The same books have
also been separately republished in French.

An English edition of Calvin's "Works, by the " Calvin Translation Society,"
Edinburgh, 1843-'53, in 52 vols. The Institutes have been translated by
Allen (London, 1813, often reprinted by the Presbyterian Board of Pub
lication in Philadelphia), and by Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh, 1846).
German translations of his Institutes by Fr. Ad. Krummacher (1834) and
by B. Spiess (the first edition of 1536, Wiesbaden, 1887), and of parts of
his Comment., by C. F. L. Matthieu (1859 sqq.).

226 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

The extensive correspondence of Calvin was first edited in part by BEZA and
JONVILLIERS (Calvin's secretary), Genevas, 1575, and other editions;
then by BRETSCHNEIDER (the Gotha Letters), Lips. 1835 ; by A. CROTTET,
Geneve, 1850; much more completely by JULES BONNET, Lettres Francoises,
Paris, 1854, 2 vols.; an English translation (from the French and Latin)
by D. CONSTABLE and M. R. GILCHRIST, Edinburgh and Philadelphia
(Presbyterian Board of Publication), 1855 sqq., in 4 vols. (the fourth
with an index), giving the letters in chronological order (till 1558). The
last and best edition is by the Strassburg Professors in Calvini Opera,
vol. X. Part II. to vol. XX., with ample Prolegomena on the various edi
tions of Calvin's Letters and the manuscript sources. His letters down
to 1542 are also given by HERMINJARD, vols. VI. and VII., quoted above.

V. BIOGRAPHIES OF CALVIN :

* THEODOR BEZA (d. 1605) : Johannis Calvini Vita. First published with Cal
vin's posthumous Commentary on Joshua, in the year of his death.
It is reprinted in all editions of Calvin's works, and in Tholuck's edition
of Calvin's Commentary on the Gospels. In the same year Beza pub
lished a French edition under the title, L'llistoire de la vie et morl de
Maistre Jean Calvin avec le testament et derniere volonte' dudit Calvin : et le
catalogue des livres par lui/ composez. Geneve, 1564 ; second French edition,
enlarged and improved by his friend and colleague, NIC. COLLADON, 1565 ;
best edition, Geneva, 1657 (very rare, 204 pp.), which has been carefully
republished from a copy in the Mazarin library, with an introduction and
notes by ALFRED FRANKLIN, Paris, 1869 (pp. Ixi and 294). This edition
should be consulted. The three biographies of Beza (two French and
one Latin) are reprinted in the Brunswick edition of Calvin's Opera with
a notice litte'raire, Tom. XXI. pp. 6-172, to which are added the Epitaphia
in lo. Calvinum scripta (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French). There are
also German, English, and Italian translations of this biography. An
English translation by Francis Sibson of Trinity College, Dublin, re
printed in Philadelphia, 1836 ; another by Beveridge, Edinburgh, 1843.

The biography of Beza as enlarged by Colladon, though somewhat eulogistic,
and especially Calvin's letters and works, and the letters of his friends
who knew him best, furnish the chief material for an authentic biography.

HIEROSME HERMES BOLSEC : Histoire de la vie, mwurs, actes, doctrine, Constance
et mort de Jean Calvin, jadis ministre de Geneve, dedie an Heverendissime
archeuesque, conte de I'Eglise de Lyon, et Primat de France, Lyon, 1577
(26 chs. and 143 pp.) ; republished at Paris, 1582; and with an introduc
tion and notes by L. Fr. Chastel, Lyon, 1875 (pp. xxxi and 328). I have
used Chastel's edition. A Latin translation, De J. Calvini magni quondam
Genevensium ministri vita, moribus, rebus gestis, studiis ac deniqite inorte, ap
peared in Paris, 1577, also at Cologne, 1580; a German translation at
Cologne, 1581. Bolsec was a Carmelite monk, then physician at Geneva,
expelled on account of Pelagian views and opposition to Calvin, 1551 ;
returned to the Roman Church ; d. at Annecy about 1584. His book is a
mean and unscrupulous libel, inspired by feelings of hatred and revenge ;

§ 58. LITERATURE ON CALVIN, ETC. 227

but some of his facts are true, and have been confirmed by the documents
published by Galiffe. Bolsec wrote a similar biography of Beza : Histoire
de la vie, mceurs, doctrine et deportments de 77*. de Beze dit le Spectable, 1582.
A French writer says, " Ces biographies sont un tissu de calomnies qu' aucun
historien se'rieux, pas 7iieme le P. Maimbourg, n'a ose admettre et dont plus
re'cemment M. Mignet a fait bonne justice." (A. Reville in Lichtenberger's
" Encycl.," II. 343.) Comp. the article " Bolsec " in La France Protestante,
2d ed. (1879), II. 745-776.

Antibolseccus. Cleve, 1622. Of this book I find only the title.

JACQUES LE VASSEUR (canon and dean of the Church of Noyon) : Annales de
I'e'glise cathe'drale de Noyon. Paris, 1633, 2 vols. 4°. Contains some notices
on the birth and relations of Calvin.

JACQUES DESMAY (R. C.) : Remarques sur la vie de J. Calvin heresiarque tirees
des Registres de Noyon. Rouen, 1621 and 1657.

CHARLES DRELINCOURT (pastor at Charenton) : La defense de Calvin contre
I' outrage fait a sa me'moire. Geneve, 1067; in German, Hanau, 1671. A
refutation of the slanders of Bolsec and a posthumous book of Cardinal
Richelieu on the easiest and surest method of conversion of those who
separated themselves from the Roman Church. Bayle gives an epitome
in his Dictionnaire.

MELCHIOR ADAM : Vita Calvini, in his Vitce Theologorum, etc. 3d ed. Franeof.,
1705 (Part II., Decades dtue, etc., pp. 32-55). Chiefly from Beza.

ELIJAH WATERMAN (pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Bridgeport, Conn.) :
Memoirs of tlie Life and Writings of John Calvin: together icith a selection of
Letters written by him and other distinguished Reformers. Hartford, 1813.

VIXCENT AUDIN (R. C., 1793-1851) : Histoire de la vie, des ouvrages et des doc
trines de Catrin. Paris, 1841, 2 vols.; 5th ed. 1851 ; 6th ed. 1873. English
translation by John McGill ; German translation, 1843. Written like a
novel, with a deceptive mixture of truth and falsehood. It is a Bolsec
redivivus. Audin says that he first cast away the book of Bolsec " as a
shameful libel. All testimony was against Bolsec : Catholics and Protes
tants equally accused him. But, after a patient study of the reformer,
we are now compelled to admit, in part, the recital of the physician of
Lyon. Time has declared for Bolsec; each day gives the lie to the
apologists of Calvin." He boasts of having consulted more than a thou
sand volumes on Calvin, but betrays his polemical bias by confessing that
he " desired to prove that the refugee of Xoyon was fatal to civilization,
to the arts, and to civil and religious liberty." Audin wrote in the same
spirit the history of Luther (1839, 3 vols.), Henry VIII. (1847), and
Leo X. (1851). His work is disowned and virtually refuted by fair-
minded Catholics like Kampschulte, Cornelius, and Funk.

* PAUL HENRY, D.D. (pastor of a French Reformed Church in Berlin) : Das
I. (ben Joliann Calvins des grossen Reformatory, etc. (dedicated to Neander).
Hamburg, 1835-44, 3 vols. English translation (but without the notes
and appendices, and differing from the author on the case of Servetus)
by HENRY STKIUIING, London and Xew York, 1851, in 2 vols. This large

228 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

work marks an epoch as an industrious collection of valuable material,
but is ill digested, and written with unbounded admiration for Calvin.
Henry wrote also, in opposition to Audin and Galiffe, an abridged Leben
Johann Calvin's. Ein Zeugniss fur die Wahrheit. Hamburg and Gotha,
1846 (pp. 498).

THOMAS SMYTH, D.D. : Calvin and his Enemies. 1843; new ed. Philadelphia
(Presbyterian Board of Publication), 1856, and again 1881. Apologetic.

THOMAS H. DYER: The Life of John Calvin. London (John Murray), 1850,
pp. 560 (republished, New York, 1851). Graphic and impartial, founded
upon Calvin's correspondence, Henry, and Trechsel (Antitrinitarier').

FELIX BUXGENER : Calvin, sa vie, son oeuvre, et ses e'crits. Paris, 2d ed. 1863
(pp. 468). English translation, Edinburgh, 1863.

* E. STAHELIN (Reformed minister at Basel) : Johannes Calvin ; Leben und

ausgewahlte Schriften. Elberfeld, 1863, 2 vols. (in " Vater und Begriinder
der reform. Kirche," vol. IV. in two parts). One of the best biographies,
though not as complete as Henry's, and in need of modification and
additions from more recent researches.

PAUL PRESSEL (Luth.) : Johann Calvin. Ein evangelisches Lebensbild. Elber
feld, 1864 (pp. 263). For the tercentenary of Calvin's death (May 27,
1864). Based upon Stiihelin, Henry, Mignet, and Bonnet's edition of
Calvin's letters.

ALBERT RILLIET : Bibliographic de la vie de Calvin. " Correspond, litteraire."
Paris, 1864. La premier sejour de Calvin a Geneve. Gen. 1878.

* GUIZOT (the great historian and statesman, a descendant of the Huguenots,

d. at Val Richer, Sept. 12, 1874) : St. Louis and Calvin. London, 1868.
Comp. also his sketch in the Musee des protestants ce'lebres.

* F. W. KAMPSCHULTE (a liberal Roman Catholic, Professor of History at

Bonn, died an Old Catholic, 1872) : Joh. Calvin, seine Kirche und sein Staat
in Genf. Leipzig, 1869, vol. I. (vols. II. and III. have not appeared).
A most able, critical, and, for a Catholic, remarkably fair and liberal
work, drawn in part from unpublished sources. — In the same spirit of
fairness, Prof. FDNK of Tubingen wrote an article on Calvin in the
2d ed. of Wetzer and Welte's Catholic Kirchenlexicon, II. 1727-1744.

THOMAS M'CRiE, D.D. : The Early Years of John Calvin. A Fragment, 1509-
1536. A posthumous work, edited by William Ferguson. Edinburgh,
1880 (pp. 199). Valuable as far as it goes.

Art, "Calvin" in La France Protestante, Paris, 2d ed. vol. III. (1881), 508-639.

ABEL LEFRANC : La jeunesse de Calvin. Paris, 1888 (pp. 229). The author
brings to light new facts on the extent of the Protestant move
ment at Noyon. — Comp. his Histoire de la Ville de Noyon et de ses institu
tions. Paris, 1888.

Annales Calviniani by the editors of the Brunswick edition of Calvin's Opera.
Tom. XXI. 183-818. From 1509 to 1572. Invaluable for reference.

§ 58. LITERATURE ON CALVIN, ETC. 229

VI. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES AND ESSAYS ON SPECIAL POINTS CONNECTED

WITH CALVIN:

FR. AUG. ALEX. MIGNET (eminent French historian and academician, 1796-
1884) : Me'moire sur I'e'tablissement de la reforme et sur la constitution du
Calvinisme a Geneve. Paris, 1834. The same in German, Leipzig, 1843.
G. WEBER : Geschichtliche Darstellung des Calvinismus im Verhdltniss zum Staat
in Genf und Frankreich bis zur Aufhebung des Edikts von Nantes. Heidel
berg, 1836 (pp. 372).

* J. J. HERZOG: Joh. Calvin, Basel, 1843; and in his Real-Encyklop? vol. III.

77-106.

* JULES BONNET : Lettres de Jean Calvin, 1854 ; Calvin au val d'Aoste, 1861 ;

Idelette de Sure, femme de Calvin (in "Bulletin de la societe de 1'histoire

du Protest, francais, 1856, Nos. 11 and 12) ; Re'cits du seizieme siecle, Paris,

1864 ; Nouveaux re'cits, 1870 ; Derniers re'cits, 1876.
E. KENAN: Jean Calvin, in Etudes d'histoire religieuse, 5th ed. Paris, 1862;

English translation by 0. B. Frothingham (Studies of Religious History

and Criticism, New York, 1864, pp. 285-297).
J. H. ALBERT RILLIET : Lettre a M. Merle d'Aubigne sur deux points obscurs de

la vie de Calvin, Geneve, 1864. Le premier se'jour de Calvin a Geneve, in

his and Dufour's edition of Calvin's French Catechism, Geneve, 1878.

MONKEBERG : Joachim Westphal and Joh. Calvin. Hamburg, 1865.

J. KOSTLIN : Calvin's Institutio nach Form und Inhalt, in the " Studien und

Kritiken," 1868.
EDMOND STERN : La theorie du culte d'apres Calvin. Strassburg, 1869.

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE : Calvinism, an Address delivered to the Students of
St. Andrews, March 17, 1871 (in his Short Studies on Great Subjects, Second
Series, New York, 1873, pp. 9-53).

Principal WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM (Free Church of Scotland, d. 1861) : The
Reformers and the Theology of the Reformers. Edinburgh, 1862.

Principal JOHN TULLOCH (of the Established Church of Scotland, d. 1885) :
Leaders of the Reformation. Edinburgh, 1859; 3d ed. 1883.

PHILIP SCHAFF: John Calvin, in the " Bibliotheca Sacra," Andover, 1857, pp.
125-146, and in Creeds of Christendom (New York, 1877), I. 421-471.

A. A. HODGE (d. at Princeton, 1885): Calvinism, in Johnson's "Universal

Cyclopedia" (New York, 1875 sqq.), vol. I. pp. 727-734; new ed. 1886,

vol. I. 676-683.
LYMAN H. ATWATER : Calvinism in Doctrine and Life, in the "Presbyterian

Quarterly and Princeton Review," New York, January, 1875, pp. 73-106.
DARDIER and JUNDT : Calvin, in Lichtenberger's " Encyclope'die des sciences

religieuses," Tom. II. 529-557. (Paris, 1877.)

P. LOBSTEIN : Die Ethik Calvins in ihren Grundzugen. Strassburg, 1877.
W. LINDSAY ALEXANDER : Calvin, in " Encycl. Brit.," 9th ed. vol. IV. 714 sqq,
PIERRE VAUCHER : Calvin et les Genevois. Gen. 1880.

230 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

A. PIERSON : Studien over Joh. Kalvijn. Haarlem, 1881-'83.
J. M. USTERI : Calvin's Sacraments- und Tauflehre. 1884.

B. FONTANA : Documenti dell' archivio Vaticano e dell' Estense, circa il soggiorno di

Calv. a Ferrara. Rom. 1885. E. COMBA in " Revisita christ.," 1885, IV.-VII.

C. A. CORNELIUS (liberal Catholic) : Die Verbannung Calvins aus Genf. im

J. 1536. Miinchen, 1886. Die Riickkehr Calvins nach Genf. I. Die
Guillermins (pp. 62); II. Die Artichauds ; III. Die Berufung (pp. 102).
Miinchen, 1888 and 1889. Separate print from the " Abhandlungen der
K. bayer. Akademie der Wissenschaften," XIX. Bd. II. Abth. Cornelius,
a friend of Dollinger, agrees in his high estimate of Calvin with Kamp-
schulte, but dwells chiefly on the political troubles of Geneva during
Calvin's absence (with large quotations from Herminjard's collection of
letters), and stops with Calvin's return, September, 1540.

CHARLES W. SHIELDS: Calvin's Doctrine on Infant Salvation, in the "Presb.
and Ref. Review," New York, 1890, pp. 634-651. Tries to show that
Calvin taught universal infant salvation (?).

ED. STRICKER : Johann Calvin als erster Pfarrer der reformirten Gemeinde zu
Strassburg. Nach nrkundlichen Quellen. Strassburg, 1890 (vi and 66 pp.).
— In connection with Calvin's sojourn at Strassburg may also be con
sulted, R. REUSS : Histoire de I'e'glise de Strassbourg, 1880; and A. ERICH-
SON : L'e'glise francaise de Strassbourg au XVIme siecle, 1886.

E. DOUMERGUE (Professor of Church History at Montauban) : Essai sur

I'histoire du culte reforme' principalement au XVIe et au XIXe siecle. Paris,

1890. The first part, pp. 1-116, treats of Calvin's Liturgies and labors

for church poetry and music.

The literature on Servetus will be given below, in the section on Calvin

and Servetus.

VII. HISTORIES OF THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND:
* ADR. RUCHAT (Professor of Theology in the Academy of Lausanne, d. 1750) :
Histoire de la reformation de, la Suisse. Geneve, 1727 sq., 6 vols.; new ed.
with appendices, by Prof. L. Vulliemin, Kyon, 1835-'38, 7 vols. Comes
down to 1566. Strongly anti-Romish and devoted to Bern, diffuse and
inelegant in style, but full of matter, " un recueil de savant es dissertations,
un e.rtrait de documents" (Dardier, in Lichtenberger's "Encyclop.," XI.
345). — An English abridgment in one volume by J. COLLINSON : History
of the Reformation in Switzerland by Euchat. London, 1845. Goes to 1537.
DAN. GERDES (1698-1767) : Introductio in Historiam Evannelii secnlo XVI.
passim per Europam renovati doctrinceque Reformats • accedunt varia monu-
menta pietatis atque rei liter ar ice. Groningae, 1744-'52, 4 vols. Contains
pictures of the Reformers and interesting documents. Parts of vols. I.,
II., and IV. treat of the Swiss Reformation.

C. B. HUNDESHAGEN (Professor in Bern, afterwards in Heidelberg and Bonn;
d. 1872) : Die Conflicts des Zwinqlianismvs, LutJterthums und Calvinismus
in der Bernischen LandesJcirche von 1532-1558. Nach meist ungedruckten
Quellen. Bern, 1842.

§ 59. THE CONDITION OF FRENCH SWITZERLAND. 231

* J. GABEREL (ancien pasteur): Histoire de Veglise de Geneve depuis le commence

ment de la re'forme jusqu'en 1815. Geneve, 1855-63, 3 vols.

P. CHARPENNE : Histoire de la reformation et des reformateurs de Geneve. Paris,

1861.

FLEURY : Histoire de Ve'glise de Geneve. Geneve, 1880. 2 vols.
The works of AMAD. ROGET, quoted sub II.

* MERLE P'AUBIGNE (Professor of Church History in the Free Church Theo

logical Seminary at Geneva) : Histoire de la reformation en Europe au
temps du Calvin. Paris, 1863-78. English translation in several editions,
the best by Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1863-'78, 8 vols.; American
edition by Carter, New York, 1870-79, 8 vols. The second division of
Merle's work on the Reformation. The last three volumes were edited
after his death (Oct. 21, 1872) by Duchemin and Binder, and translated
by William L. R. Gates. The work gives the history of the Reformation
in Geneva down to 1542, and of the other Reformed Churches to the
middle of the sixteenth century. It is, therefore, incomplete, but, as far
as it goes, the most extensive, eloquent, and dramatic history of the
Reformation by an enthusiastic partisan of the Reformers, especially
Calvin, in full sympathy with their position and faith, except on the
union of Church and State and the persecution of heretics. The first
division, which is devoted to the Lutheran Reformation till 1530, had an
extraordinary circulation in England and America. Ranke, with his
calm, judicial temperament, wondered that such a book could be written
in the nineteenth century. (See Preface to vol. VII. p. vi, note.)

ETIEXNE CHASTEL (Professor of Church History in the University of Geneva,
d. 1882) : Histoire du Christianisme. Paris, 1882, 5 vols. Tom. IV. 66 sqq.
treats of the Swiss Reformation.

G. P. FISHER : The Reformation. New York, 1873, ch. VII. pp. 192-241.

PHILIPPE GODET (son of Frederic, the commentator) : Histoire litte'raire de
la Suisse francaise. Neuchatel and Paris, 1890. Ch. II. 51-112 treats of
the Reformers (Farel, Viret, Froment, Calvin, and Beza).

VIRGILE ROSSEL : Histoire litte'raire de la Suisse romande. Geneve (H. Georg),
1890, 2 vols. The first vol. Des origines jusqu'au XVIIIme siecle.

The Histories of the Reformation in France usually give also an account
of the labors of Farel, Calvin, and Beza; e.g. the first volume of GOTTLOB
VON POLENZ : Gesckichte des franzb'sischen Calvinismus (Gotha, 1857 sqq.).

§ 59. The Condition of French Switzerland before the
Reformation.

The losses of the Reformation in German Switzerland
were more than made up by the gains in French Switzer
land ; that is, in the three Cantons, Vaud, Neuchatel, and

232 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Geneva.1 Protestantism moved westward. Calvin continued,
improved, and completed the work of Zwingli, and gave it
a wider significance. Geneva took the place of Zurich, and
surpassed in influence the city of Zwingli and the city of
Luther. It became u the Protestant Rome," from which
proceeded the ideas and impulses for the Reformed Churches
of France, Holland, England, and Scotland. The city of
Calvin has long since departed from his rigorous creed and
theocratic discipline, and will never return to them ; but the
evangelical faith still lives there in renewed vigor ; and
among cities of the same size there is none that occupies a
more important and influential position in theological and
religious activity as well as literary and social culture, and
as a convenient centre for the settlement of international
questions, than Geneva.

The Reformation of French Switzerland cannot be sepa
rated from that of France. The inhabitants of the two
countries are of the same Celtic or Gallic stock mixed with
Germanic (Frank and Burgundian) blood. The first evan
gelists of Western Switzerland were Frenchmen who had to
flee from their native soil. They became in turn, through
their pupils, the founders of the Reformed Church of France.
The Reformed Churches of the two countries are one in
spirit. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, many
Huguenots found an asylum in Geneva, Vaud, and Neu-
chatel. The French Swiss combine the best traits of the
French character with Swiss solidity and love of freedom.
They are ever ready to lend a helping hand to their brethren
across the frontier, and they form at the same time a connect
ing link between them and the Protestants of the German
tongue. Their excellent educational institutions attract
students from abroad and train teachers for other countries.

1 La Suisse francaise or la Suisse romande. Vaud has 1244 square miles;
Neuchatel, 312; Geneva, 109. The first numbered, in 1889, 251,000 inhabi
tants; the second, 109,000; the third, 107,000.

§ 59. THE CONDITION OF FRENCH SWITZERLAND. 233

The territory of the French Cantons, which embraces
1665 square miles, was in the sixteenth century under the
protection of the Swiss Confederacy.

Yaud was conquered by Bern from the Duke of Savoy,
and ruled by bailiffs till 1798.1

The principality of Neuchatel and Valangin concluded a
co-burghery with Freiburg, 1290, with Bern, 1307, and with
Solothurn, 1324. In 1707 the principality passed to King
Frederick I. of Prussia, who confirmed the rights and liber
ties of the country and its old alliance with Switzerland.
The connection with Prussia continued till 1857, when it
was dissolved by free consent.2

Geneva was originally governed by a bishop and a count,
who divided the spiritual and secular government between
them. Duke Charles III. of Savoy tried to subdue the city
with the aid of an unworthy and servile bishop, Pierre de
la Baume, whom he had appointed from his own family with
the consent of Pope Leo X.3 But a patriotic party, under
the lead of Philibert Berthelier, Besangoii Hugues, and Fran-
gois Bonivard (Byron's " Prisoner of Chillon ") opposed the
attempt and began a struggle for independence, which lasted
several years, and resembles on a small scale the heroic
struggle of Switzerland against foreign oppression. The
patriots, on account of their alliance with the Swiss, were
called Eidgenossen, — a German word for (Swiss) Confed-

1 See Vulliemin, Le canton de Vaud, Lausanne, 3d ed., 1885. Verdeil,
Histoire du canton de Vaud, Lausanne, 1854-'o7, 4 vols.

2 See the historical works on Neuchatel by Chambrier, Matile, Boyve,
Majer, Benoit.

3 Pierre de la Baume was bishop of Geneva from 1523 to 1536, became
bishop of Besan9on 1542, and died 1544. Bonivard (as quoted by Audin, who
praises the bishops of Geneva) says of him : " He was a great dissipator of
goods, in all things superfluous, esteeming it a sovereign virtue in a prelate
to have his table loaded with large dishes of meat and all sorts of wines ; and
when there he gave himself up so completely as to exceed thirty-one courses."
Audin adds (p. 116) : "This shaft would have been much more pointed, had
not Bonivard often seated himself at this table and drank far otherwise than
became the prior of St. Victor."

234 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

crates, which degenerated by mispronunciation into Eignots
and Huguenots, and passed afterwards from Geneva to France
as a nickname for Protestants.1 The party of the Duke of
Savoy and the bishop were nicknamed Mamelukes or slaves.
The patriots gained the victory with the aid of the German
Swiss. On Feb. 20, 1526, Bern and Freiburg concluded an
alliance with Geneva, and pledged their armed aid for the
protection of her independence. The citizens of Geneva
ratified the Swiss alliance by an overwhelming majority, who
shouted, " The Swiss and liberty ! " The bishop appealed in
vain to the pope and the emperor, and left Geneva for St.
Claude. But he had to accept the situation, and continued
to rule ten years longer (till 1536). 2

This political movement, of which Berthelier is the chief
hero, had no connection with the Reformation, but prepared
the way for it, and was followed by the evangelical labors
of Farel and Viret, and the organization of the Reformed
Church under Calvin. During the war of emancipation
there grew up an opposition to the Roman Church and the
clergy of Geneva, which sided with Savoy and was very cor
rupt, even according to the testimonies of Roman Catholic
writers, such as Bishop Antoine Champion, Bonivard, the
Sceur de Jussie, and Francis of Sales. Reports of the Lu
theran and Zwinglian reformation nursed the opposition.
Freiburg (Fribourg) remained Roman Catholic,3 and broke

1 Merle D'Aubigne, I. 119: "Until after the Reformation, this sobriquet
had a purely political meaning, in no respect religious, and designated simply
the friends of independence. Many years after, the enemies of the Protes
tants of France called them by this name, wishing to stigmatize them and
impute to them a foreign, republican, and heretical origin. Such is the true
etymology of the term." There are, however, two other etymologies, — one
from Hugh Capet, from whom descended Henry IV., the political and military
leader of the Huguenots.

2 For the details of these political struggles, which have little interest for
Church history, see Merle D'Aubigne, I. 1-425 ; the Histories of Geneva, and
Am. Roget, Les Suisses et Geneve, ou I 'emancipation de la communaute' genevoise
au XVIe siecle, Geneve, 1864, 2 vols. Also Kampschulte, I.e. I. 3-90.

3 It is famous for the organ in the Church of St. Nicolas, for a suspension

§ 59. THE CONDITION OF FRENCH SWITZERLAND. 235

the alliance with Geneva ; but Bern strengthened the alliance
and secured for Geneva political freedom from Savoy and
religious freedom from Rome.

NOTES.

For the understanding of the geography and history of the Swiss Confed
eracy, the following facts should be considered in connection with the map
facing p. 1.

1. The original Confederacy of the THREE FOREST CANTONS (Urcantone,
Waldstdtte} , Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, from Aug. 1, 1291 (the date of
the renewal of an older covenant of 1244) to 1332. Victory at Morgarten
over Duke Leopold of Austria, Nov. 15, 1315. (After 1352 the number of
Forest Cantons \vasjive, including Luzern and Zug.)

2. The Confederacy of the EIGHT CANTONS (Orte} from 1353 to 1481.
Luzern joined the Forest Cantons in 1332 (thenceforward the Confederacy

was called the Band der Vier Waldstdtte, to which in 1352 was added Zug as
the Fifth Forest Canton; hence the Fiinf Orte or Five Cantons'}.

Zurich joined 1351. Glarus joined 1352.

Zug " 1352. Bern " 1353.

Victories over the Austrians at Sempach, July 9, 1386 (Arnold von Win-
kelried), and Nafels, April 9, 1388. Battle against the Dauphin of France
(Louis XL) Aug. 26, 1444, at St. Jacob near Basel (the Thermopylas of the
Swiss), and victories over Charles the Bold of Burgundy, at Grandson, June 22,
1476, and Nancy, Jan. 5, 1477.

3. The Confederacy of the THIRTEEN CANTONS, 1513-1798.

Freiburg joined 1481. Schaffhausen joined 1501.

Solothurn " 1481. Appenzell " 1513.

Basel " 1501.

4. The Confederation under the French Directory, 1798-1802. Vaud, with
the help of France, made herself independent of Bern, 1798. Valtellina
Chiavenna, and Bormio were lost to the Orisons and attached to the Cisalpine
Republic by Napoleon, 1797. Neuchatel separated from Switzerland.

5. The Confederation of NINETEEN CANTONS from 1803-1813, under the
influence of Napoleon as " Mediator."

6. Modern Switzerland of TWENTY-TWO CANTONS from the Congress of
Vienna, 1815, to date.

The new Cantons are : Ticino, Valais, St. Gall, Aargau, Thurgau, Grisons,
Geneva, Vaud, Neuchatel. They were formerly dependent on, and protected
by, or freely associated with, the Thirteen Cantons.

bridge, and a Catholic university. It is the seat of the bishop of Lausanne,
and must not be confounded with Freiburg-im-Breisgau in the Grand Duchy
of Baden, which is also a stronghold of Romanism.

236

THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

§ 60. William Far el (1489-1565).

Letters of Fare! and to Farel in HERMINJARD, beginning with vol. I. 193, and
in the Strassburg edition of Calvin's correspondence, Opera, X.-XX.

Biographies by BEZA (Icones, 1580, with a picture) ; MELCHIOR ADAM (Decades
ditfc, 57-01); *KIRCHHOFER (18-33, 2 vols.) ; VEKHEIDEX (Imagines et
Elogia, 1725, p. 86 sq., with picture) ; CHENEVIERE (1835) ; JUXOD (1865).
MERLE I/AFBIGNE gives a very minute but broken account of Farel's
earlier labors, especially in Geneva (vols. III., IV., V., books 5, 6, and 9).
See also RUCHAT, F. GODET, and other works mentioned in § 58, and art.
« Farel " in La France Protestante, tome VI. 386-415 (1888).

GUILLAUME FAREL.

(From Beza's Icones.}

Two years after the political emancipation of Geneva
from the yoke of Savoy, Bern embraced the Protestant
Reformation (1528), and at once exerted her political and
moral influence for the introduction of the new religion

§ 60. WILLIAM FAREL. 237

into the neighboring French territory over which she had ac
quired control. She found three evangelists ready for this
work, — one a native of Vaud, and two fugitive Frenchmen.
The city of Freiburg, the Duke of Savoy, Charles V., and
the pope endeavored to prevent the progress of heresy, but
in vain.

The pioneer of Protestantism in Western Switzerland is
William Farel. He was a travelling evangelist, always in
motion, incessant in labors, a man full of faith and fire,
as bold and fearless as Luther and far more radical, but
without his genius. He is called the Elijah of the French
Reformation, and " the scourge of the priests." Once an
ardent papist, he became as ardent a Protestant, and looked
hereafter only at the dark side, the prevailing corruptions
and abuses of Romanism. He hated the pope as the veri
table Antichrist, the mass as idolatry, pictures and relics as
heathen idols which must be destroyed like the idols of the
Canaanites. Without a regular ordination, he felt himself
divinely called, like a prophet of old, to break down idolatry
and to clear the way for the spiritual worship of God accord
ing to his own revealed word. He was a born fighter ; he
came, not to bring peace, but the sword. He had to deal
with priests who carried firearms and clubs under their
frocks, and he fought them with the sword of the word and
the spirit. Once he was fired at, but the gun burst, and,
turning round, he said, " I am not afraid of your shots."
He never used violence himself, except in language. He
had an indomitable will and power of endurance. Persecu
tion and violence only stimulated him to greater exertions.
His outward appearance was not prepossessing : he was
small and feeble, with a pale but sunburnt face, narrow
forehead, red and ill-combed beard, fiery eyes, and an ex
pressive mouth.

Farel had some of the best qualities of an orator : a
sonorous and stentorian voice, appropriate gesture, fluency

238 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

of speech, and intense earnestness, which always commands
attention and often produces conviction. His contempora
ries speak of the thunders of his eloquence and of his trans
porting prayers. " Tua ilia fulgura" writes Calvin. "Nemo
tonuit fortius" says Beza. His sermons were extemporized,
and have not come down to us. Their power lay in the
oral delivery. We may compare him to Whitefield, who was
likewise a travelling evangelist, endowed with the magnetism
of living oratory. In Beza's opinion, Calvin was the most
learned, Farel the most forcible, Viret the most gentle
preacher of that age.1

The chief defect of Farel was his want of moderation and
discretion. He was an iconoclast. His violence provoked
unnecessary opposition, and often did more harm than good.
(Ecolampadius praised his zeal, but besought him to be also
moderate and gentle. " Your mission," he wrote to him, " is
to evangelize, not to curse. Prove yourself to be an evan
gelist, not a tyrannical legislator. Men want to be led, not
driven." Zwingli, shortly before his death, exhorted him
not to expose himself rashly, but to reserve himself for the
further service of the Lord.

Farel's work was destructive rather than constructive. He
could pull down, but not build up. He was a conqueror,

1 Beza, in his Icones, thus describes Farel's best qualities: "Hie enim ille
est qui nullis difficultatibus fractus, nullis minis, convitiis, verberibus denique inflictis
territus, Mombelgardenses, Neocomenses, Lausanenses, Aquileienses, Genevenses de
nique Christo lucrifecit. Fuit enim in hoc homine prceter pietatem, doctrinam,
vitce innocentiam, eximiamque modestiam, singidaris qucedam animi praesentia,
ingenium acre, sermo vehementice plenus, ut tonare potius quam loqui videretur :
ardorque denique tantus in precando, ut audientes quasi in coelum usque subveheret.'*
And he compares Calvin, Farel, and Viret in these verses (in 1568) : —

" Gallica mirata est Calvinum ecclesia nuper,

Quo nemo docuit doctius.
Est quoque te nuper mirata, Farelle, tonantemt

Quo nemo tonuit fortius.
Et miratur adhuc fundentem mella Viretum,

Quo nemo fatur dulcius.
Scilicet aut tribus his servabere testibus olim,

Aut interibis Gallia."

§ 60. WILLIAM FAREL. 239

but not an organizer of his conquests ; a man of action, not
a man of letters ; an intrepid preacher, not a theologian.
He felt his defects, and handed his work over to the mighty
genius of his younger friend Calvin. In the spirit of gen
uine humility and self-denial, he was willing to decrease that
Calvin might increase. This is the finest trait in his character.1

Guillaume Farel, the oldest of seven children of a poor
but noble family, was born in the year 1489 (five years after
Luther and Zwingli, twenty years before Calvin) at Gap, a
small town in the alps of Dauphine in the south-east of
France, where the religious views of the Waldenses were
once widely spread. He inherited the blind faith of his
parents, and doubted nothing. He made with them, as he
remembered in his old age, a pilgrimage to a wonder-working
cross which was believed to be taken from the cross of our
Lord. He shared in the superstitious veneration of pictures
and relics, and bowed before the authority of monks and
priests. He was, as he said, more popish than popery.

At the same time he had a great thirst for knowledge, and
was sent to school at Paris. Here he studied the ancient
languages (even Hebrew), philosophy, and theology. His
principal teacher, Jacques Le Fevre d' Staples (Faber Stapu-
lensis, 1455-1536), the pioneer of the Reformation in France
and translator of the Scriptures, introduced him into the
knowledge of Paul's Epistles and the doctrine of justifica
tion by faith, and prophetically told him, already in 1512:
" My son, God will renew the world, and you will witness
it." 2 Farel acquired the degree of Master of Arts (January,

1 " L'homme du midi [Farel] e'tait fait pour conquerir ; I'homme du nord [Cal
vin] pour conserver et discipliner la conquete. Farel en eut le sentiment si distinct,
qu'il s'effaga spontane'ment devant Calvin le jour ou il le contraignit par les 'ton-
nerres ' de sa parole de demeurer a Geneve, qui avait besoin de son ge'nie." Philippe
Godet, Hist, litte'r. de la Suisse francaise, p. 51.

2 " Mon Jils, Dieu renouvellera le monde et tu en seras le te'moin." Hermin-
jard, I. 5, note. Compare the passage there quoted from Le Fevre's work on
St. Paul.

240 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

1517), and was appointed teacher at the college of Cardinal
Le Moine.

The influence of Le Fevre and the study of the Bible
brought him gradually to the conviction that salvation can
be found only in Christ, that the word of God is the only
rule of faith, and that the Roman traditions and rites are
inventions of man. He was amazed that he could find in
the New Testament no trace of the pope, of the hierarchy,
of indulgences, of purgatory, of the mass, of seven sacra
ments, of sacerdotal celibacy, of the worship of Mary and
the saints. Le Fevre, being charged with heresy by the
Sorbonne, retired in 1521 to his friend William Brigonnet,
bishop of Meaux, who was convinced of the necessity of a
reformation within the Catholic Church, without separation
from Rome.1 There he translated the New Testament into
French, which was published in 1523 without his name
(almost simultaneously with Luther's German New Testa
ment). Several of his pupils, Farel, Gerard, Roussel, Michel
d'Arande, followed him to Meaux, and were authorized by
Brigonnet to preach in his diocese. Margaret of Valois,
sister of King Francis I. (then Duchess of Alengon, after
wards Queen of Navarre), patronized the reformers and also
the freethinkers. But Farel was too radical for the mild
bishop, and forbidden to preach, April 12, 1523. He went
to Gap and made some converts, including four of his
brothers ; but the people found his doctrine " very strange,"
and drove him away. There was no safety for him any
where in France, which then began seriously to persecute
the Protestants.

Farel fled to Basel, and was hospitably received by (Eco-
lampadius. At his suggestion he held a public disputation
in Latin on thirteen theses, in which he asserted the perfec-

1 Herminjard (I. 3) begins his Correspondance des Ref. with a letter of
Le Fevre to Bri9onnet, Dec. 15, 1512, in which he dedicated to him his Com
mentary on the Epistles of Paul.

§ 60. WILLIAM FAREL. 241

tion of the Scriptures, Christian liberty, the duty of pastors
to preach the Gospel, the doctrine of justification by faith,
and denounced images, fasting, celibacy, and Jewish cere
monies (Feb. 23, 1524) ^ The disputation was successful,
and led to the conversion of the Franciscan monk Pellican,
a distinguished Greek and Hebrew scholar, who afterwards
became professor at Zurich. He also delivered public lec
tures and sermons. (Ecolampadius wrote to Luther that
Farel was a match for the Sorbonne.2 Erasmus, whom Farel
imprudently charged with cowardice and called a Balaam,
regarded him as a dangerous disturber of the peace,3 and the
Council (probably at the advice of Erasmus) expelled him
from the city.

Farel now spent about a year in Strassburg with Bucer
and Capito. Before he went there he made a brief visit to
Zurich, Schaffhausen, and Constance, and became acquainted
with Zwingli, Myconius, and Grebel. He had a letter of
commendation to Luther from CEcolampadius, but it is not
likely that he went to Wittenberg, since there is no allusion
to it either in his or in Luther's letters. At the request of
Ulrich, Duke of Wiirtemberg, he preached in Mompelgard
(Montbeliard), and roused a fierce opposition, which forced
him soon to return to Strassburg. Here he found Le Fevre
and other friends from Meaux, whom the persecution had
forced to flee.

In 1526 Farel was again in Switzerland, and settled for a
while, at the advice of Haller, as school teacher under the

1 Herminjard (I. 193-195) gives the theses from the Archives of Zurich.
The first is the most characteristic: " Absolutissimam nobis prcescripsit Christus
vivendi regulam, cui nee addere licet, nee detrahere." CEcolampadius served as
interpreter, since Farel's French pronunciation of Latin made it difficult to
understand him.

2 " Ni minim instructus ad totam Sorbonicam affligendam, si non et perdendam."
Letter of May 15, 1524, in Herminjard, I. 215.

3 He described him in a letter to the official of Besan9on, 1524: " Nihil
vidi unquam mendacius, virulentius aut seditiosius." Quite natural from his
standpoint. The two characters had no points of contact.

242 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

name of Guillaume Ursinus (with reference to Bern, the city
of bears), at Aigle (^Elen) 1 in the Pays de Yaud on the
borders of Valais, subject to Bern.

He attended the Synod in Bern, January, 1528, which
decided the victory of the Reformation, and received a com
mission from that city to preach in all the districts under
its control (March 8, 1528). He accordingly labored as a
sort of missionary bishop at Murat (Murten), Lausanne,
Neuchatel, Valangin, Yverdun, Biel (Bienne), in the Mini
ster valley, at Orbe, Avenche, St. Blaise, Grandson, and
other places. He turned every stump and stone into a pul
pit, every house, street, and market-place into a church ;
provoked the wrath of monks, priests, and bigoted women ;
was abused, called " heretic " and "devil," insulted, spit upon,
and more than once threatened with death. An attempt
to poison him failed. Wherever he went he stirred up all
the forces of the people, and made them take sides for or
against the new gospel.

His arrival in Neuchatel (December, 1529) marks an epoch
in its history. In. spite of violent opposition, he succeeded
in introducing the Reformation in the city and neighboring
villages. He afterwards returned to Neuchatel, where he
finished his course.2 Robert Olivetan, Calvin's cousin, pub
lished the first edition of his French translation of the Bible
at Neuchatel in 1535. Farel had urged him to do this work.
It is the basis of the numerous French translations made
since that time.

In 1532 Farel with his friend Saunier visited the Walden-
ses in Piedmont at the request of Georg Morel and Peter
Masson, two Waldensian preachers, who were returning from
a visit to Strassburg and the Reformed Churches of Switzer-

1 In August, 1526, Bucer addressed him, "Ursinus, JElce episcopus." Her-
minjard, I. 461.

2 For a graphic account of his labors in Neuchatel, see Vuillemin's Le
Chroniqueur, pp. 86 sqq., and F. Godet, Histoire de la reformation et du refuge
dans le pays de Neuchatel (1859), pp. 69-190.

§ 61. FAREL AT GENEVA. 243

land. He attended the Synod which met at Chanforans in
the valley of Angrogne, Sept. 12, 1532, and resolved to adopt
the doctrines of the Reformation. He advised them to estab
lish schools. He afterwards collected money for them and
sent them four teachers, one of whom was Robert Olivetan,
who was at that time private tutor at Geneva. This is the
beginning of the fraternal relations between the Waldenses
and the Reformed Churches which continue to this day.

§ 61. Farel at Geneva. First Act of the Reformation (1535).

On their return from Piedmont, Farel and Saunier stopped
at Geneva, Oct. 2, 1532. Zwingli had previously directed
the attention of Farel to that city as an important field for
the Reformation. Olivetan was there to receive them.

The day after their arrival the evangelists were visited by
a number of distinguished citizens of the Huguenot party,
among whom was Ami Perrin, one of the most ardent promo
ters of the Reformation, and afterwards one of the chief
opponents of Calvin. They explained to them from the open
Bible the Protestant doctrines, which would complete and
consolidate the political freedom recently achieved. They
stirred up a great commotion. The Council was alarmed,
and ordered them to leave the city. Farel declared that he
was no trumpet of sedition, but a preacher of the truth, for
which he was ready to die. He showed credentials from
Bern, which made an impression. He was also summoned to
the Episcopal Council in the house of the Abbe* de Beaumont,
the vicar-general of the diocese. He was treated with inso
lence. " Come thou, filthy devil," said one of the canons,
"art thou baptized? Who invited you hither? Who gave
you authority to preach?" Farel replied with dignity: "I
have been baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Ghost, and am not a devil. I go about preaching
Christ, who died for our sins and rose for our justification.

244 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Whoever believes in him will be saved ; unbelievers will be
lost. I am sent by God as a messenger of Christ, and am
bound to preach him to all who will hear me. I am ready to
dispute with you, and to give an account of my faith and
ministry. Elijah said to King Ahab, 4 It is thou, and not I,
who disturbest Israel.' So I say, it is you and yours, who
trouble the world by your traditions, your human inventions,
and your dissolute lives." The priests had no intention to
enter into a discussion ; they knew and confessed, " If we
argue, our trade is gone." One of the canons exclaimed:
" He has blasphemed ; we need no further evidence ; he
deserves to die." Farel replied: "Speak the words of God,
and not of Caiaphas." Hereupon the whole assembly shouted:
" Away with him to the Rhone ! Kill the Lutheran dog ! "
He was reviled, beaten, and shot at. One of the syndics
interposed for his protection. He was ordered by the Epis
copal Council to leave Geneva within three hours.

He escaped with difficulty the fury of the priests, who pur
sued him with clubs. He was covered with spittle and
bruises. Some Huguenots came to his defence, and accom
panied him and Saunier in a boat across the lake to a
place between Morges and Lausanne. At Orbe, Farel found
Aiitoine Froment, a native of Dauphine, and prevailed on
him to go to Geneva as evangelist and a teacher of children
(November, 1532) ; but he was also obliged to flee.

In this critical condition the Roman party, supported by
Freiburg, called to their aid Guy Furbity, a learned Domini
can doctor of the Sorbonne. He preached during advent,
1533, against the Protestant heresy with unmeasured vio
lence. In Jan. 1, 1534, the bishop forbade all preaching
without his permission.

Farel returned under the protection of Bern, and held a
public disputation with Furbity, Jan. 29, 1534, in the pres
ence of the Great and Small Councils and the delegates of
Bern. He could not answer all his objections, but he denied

§ 61. FAREL AT GENEVA. 245

the right of the Church to impose ordinances which were not
authorized by the Scriptures, and defended the position that
Christ was the only head of the Church. He used the occasion
to explain the Protestant doctrines, and to attack the Roman
hierarchy. Christ and the Holy Spirit, he said, are not with
the pope, but with those whom he persecutes. The disputa
tion lasted several days, and ended in a partial victory for
Farel. Unable to argue from the Scriptures, Furbity con
fessed : " What I preached I cannot prove from the Bible ;
I have learned it from the Summa of St. Thomas " ; but he
repeated in the pulpit of St. Peter's his charges against the
heretics, Feb. 15, and was put in prison for several years.

Farel continued to preach in private houses. On March 1,
when a monk, Francis Coutelier, attacked the Reformation,
he ascended the pulpit to refute him. This was his first
public sermon in Geneva. The Freiburgers protested against
these proceedings, and withdrew from the coburghery (April
12). The bishop pronounced the ban over the city (April 30) ;
the Duke of Savoy threatened war. But Bern stood by Gen
eva, and under her powerful protection, Farel, Viret, and
Froment vigorously pushed the Reformation, though not
without much violence.

The priests, monks, and nuns gradually left the city, and
the bishop transferred his see to Annecy, an asylum prepared
by the Duke of Savoy. Sister Jeanne de Jussie, one of the
nuns of St. Claire, has left us a lively and naive account of
their departure to Annecy. " It was a piteous thing," she
says, " to see this holy company in such a plight, so over
come with fatigue and grief that several swooned by the way.
It was rainy weather, and all were obliged to walk through
muddy roads, except four poor invalids who were in a car
riage. There were six poor old women who had taken their
vows more than sixteen years before. Two of these, who
were past sixty-six, and had never seen anything of the
world, fainted away repeatedly. They could not bear the

246 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

wind : and when they saw the cattle in the fields, they took
the cows for bears, and the long-wooled sheep for ravaging
Wolves. They who met them were so overcome with com
passion that they could not speak a word. And though our
mother, the vicaress, had supplied them all with good shoes
to save their feet, the greater number could not walk in
them, but hung them at their waists. And so they walked
from five o'clock in the morning, when they left Geneva, till
near midnight, when they got to St. Julien, which is only a
little league off." It took the nuns fifteen hours to go a
short league. The next day (Aug. 29) they reached Annecy
under the ringing of all the bells of the city, and found rest
in the monastery of the Holy Cross. The good sister Jussie
saw in the Reformation a just punishment of the unfaithful
clergy. " Ah," she said, " the prelates and churchmen did
not observe their vows at this time, but squandered disso
lutely the ecclesiastical property, keeping women in adultery
and lubricity, and awakening the anger of God, which
brought divine judgment on them." 1

In Aug. 27, 1535, the Great Council of Two Hundred
issued an edict of the Reformation, which was followed by
another, May 21, 1536. The mass was abolished and for
bidden, images and relics were removed from the churches.
The citizens pledged themselves by an oath to live according
to the precepts of the Gospel. A school was established for
the elementary religious education of the young at the Con
vent de Rive, under the direction of Saunier. Out of it
grew, afterwards, the college and academy of Calvin. A

1 Le commencement de I'lieresie en Geneve. Grenus, Fragments historiques,
pp. 199-208; Le Chroni'queur, 147-150. Ruchat (III. 383, ed. Vulliemln)
doubts the simplicity of these good sisters, and suspects them of occasional
communication with the Franciscans through subterranean passages : " // y a
pourtant quelque lieu de douter si ces religieuses e'taient aussi simples que la sceur de
Jussi voudrait nous lefaire accroire. Les chemins souterrains qu'on de'couvrit apres
leur depart sous leur convent (et qui conduissaient a celui des Cordeliers qui e'tait a
quelques pas de la), donnent tout lieu de soupconner qu'elles recevaient de temps en
temps des visiles de ces bons freres, et qu'ainsi elles n'etaient pas tant novices dans
les affaires du monde."

§ 62. THE LAST LABORS OF FAREL. 247

general hospital was founded at St. Claire, and endowed with
the revenues of old Catholic hospitals. The bishop's palace
was converted into a prison. Four ministers and two deacons
were appointed with fixed salaries payable out of the eccle
siastical revenues. Daily sermons were introduced at St.
Pierre and St. Gervais; the communion after the simple
solemn fashion of Zurich was to be celebrated four times a
year ; baptism might be administered on any day, but only in
the church, and by a minister. All shops were to be closed
on Sunday. A strict discipline, which extended even to the
headdress of brides, began to be introduced.

This was the first act in the history of the Reformation of
Geneva. It was the work of Farel, but only preparatory to
the more important work of Calvin. The people were anx
ious to get rid of the rule of Savoy and the bishop, but had
no conception of evangelical religion, and would not submit
to discipline. They mistook freedom for license. They were
in danger of falling into the opposite extreme of disorder and
confusion.

This was the state of things when Calvin arrived at Ge
neva in the summer of 1536, and was urged by Farel to
assume the great task of building a new Church on the ruins
of the old. Although twenty years older, he assumed will
ingly a subordinate position. He labored for a while as
Calvin's colleague, and was banished with him from Geneva,
because they demanded submission to a confession of faith
and a rigorous discipline. Calvin went to Strassburg. Farel
accepted a call as pastor to Neuchatel (July, 1538), the city
where lie had labored before.

§ 62. The Last Labors of Farel.

For the remaining tAventy-seven years of his life, Farel
remained chief pastor at Neuchatel, and built up the Protes
tant Church in connection with Fabri, his colleague. He
tried to introduce a severe discipline, by which he offended

248 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

many of the new converts, and even his friends in Bern ; but
Fabri favored a milder course.

From Neuchatel Farel, following his missionary impulse,
made preaching excursions to Geneva, Strassburg, and Metz,
in Lorraine. At Metz he preached in the cemetery of the
Dominicans, while the monks sounded all the bells to drown
his voice. He accompanied Calvin to Zurich to bring about
the Consensus Tigurinus with the Zwinglians (1549). He
followed Servetus to the stake (Oct. 27, 1553), and exhorted
him in vain to renounce his errors. He collected money for
the refugees of Locarno, and sent letters of comfort to his
persecuted brethren in France. He made two visits to Ger
many (1557) to urge upon the German princes an active
intercession in behalf of the Waldenses and French Protes
tants, but without effect. In December, 1558, when already
sixty-nine years of age, he married, against the advice of
his friends, a poor maiden, who had fled with her widowed
mother from France to Neuchatel.1 Calvin was much an
noyed by this indiscretion, but besought the preachers of
that city to bear with patience the folly of the old bachelor.

The marriage did not cool Farel's zeal. In 1559 he visited
the French refugees in Alsace and Lorraine. In November,
1561, he accepted an invitation to Gap, his birthplace, and
ventured to preach in public, notwithstanding the royal pro
hibition, to the large number of his fellow-citizens who had
become Protestants.

Shortly before his death Calvin informed him of his illness,
May 2, 1564, in the last letter from his pen : " Farewell, my
best and truest brother ! And since it is God's will that you

1 Six years afterwards he became the father of a son, his only child, who
survived him three years. John Knox surpassed him in matrimonial enter
prise : he married, as a widower of fifty-eight, a Scotch lass of sixteen, of
royal name and blood (Margaret Stuart), who bore him three daughters, and
two years after his death (1572) contracted a second marriage. If Erasmus
had lived, he might have pointed to these examples in confirmation of his
witticisms on the marriages of Luther and (Ecolampadius.

§ 62. THE LAST LABORS OF FAREL. 249

remain behind me in the world, live mindful of our friend
ship, which as it was useful to the Church of God, so the fruit
of it awaits us in heaven. Pray do not fatigue yourself on
my account. It is with difficulty that I draw my breath, and
I expect that every moment will be the last. It is enough
that I live and die for Christ, who is the reward of his fol
lowers both in life and in death. Again, farewell with the
brethren." l Farel, notwithstanding the infirmity of old age,
travelled to Geneva, and paid his friend a touching fare
well visit, but returned home before his death. He wrote
to Fabri : " Would I could die for him ! What a beautiful
course has he happily finished! God grant that we may
thus finish our course according to the grace that he has
given us."

His last journey was a farewell visit to the Protestants at
Metz, who received him with open arms, and were exceed
ingly comforted by his presence (May, 1565). He preached
with the fire of his youth. Soon after his return to Neu-
chatel, he died peacefully, Sept. 13, 1565, seventy-six years
old. The friends who visited him in his last days were
deeply impressed with his heroic steadfastness and hopeful
ness. He was poor and disinterested, like all the Reformers.2
A monument was erected to him at Neuchatel, May 4, 1876.

The writings of Farel are polemical and practical tracts
for the times, mostly in French.

1 Calvin, Opera, XX. 302, where this epistola is called "ultima omnium et
valedictoria."

2 La France Pro'., VI. 409 : " Tonte sa succession se monta a 120 livrcs, preuve
de son ent/ere desinte'ressement." Godet, I.e., p. 185 : " Calvin mourant ne laissa
que 125 ecus de fortune a ses heritiers. Le petit tresor de Farel trouve apres sa
mort se montait a 220 lirres du pays."

3 See a list of 18 in Schmidt, I.e., p. 38; a more complete one (24) in La
France Protest., VI. 410-414. Herminjard, in the 7 vols. of his Correspond*
des Ref., gives 107 of his letters, and 242 letters addressed to him.

250 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

§ 63. Peter Viret and the Reformation in Lausanne.

Biographies of Viret in BEZA'S Icones, in VERHEIDEN'S Imagines et Elogia
(with a list of his works, pp. 88-90), by CHENEVIERE (1835), JAQUEMOT
(1856), C. SCHMIDT (1860). References to him in RUCHAT, LE CHRONI-
QUEUR, GABEREL, MERLE D'AUBIGNE, etc.

Farel was aided in his evangelistic efforts chiefly by Viret
and Froment, who agreed with his views, but differed from
his violent method.

Peter Viret, the Reformer of Lausanne, was the only
native Swiss among the pioneers of Protestantism in West
ern Switzerland ; all others were fugitive Frenchmen. He
was born, 1511, at Orbe, in the Pays de Vaud, and educated
for the priesthood at Paris. He acquired a considerable
amount of classical and theological learning, as is evident
from his writings. He passed, like Luther and Farel,
through a severe mental and moral struggle for truth and
peace of conscience. He renounced Romanism before he
was ordained, and returned to Switzerland. He was induced
by Farel in 1531 to preach at Orbe. He met with consider
able success, but also with great difficulty and opposition
from priests and people. He converted his parents and about
two hundred persons in Orbe, to whom he administered
the holy communion in 1532. He shared the labors and
trials of Farel and Froment in Geneva. An attempt was
made to poison them ; he alone ate of the poisoned dish, but
recovered, yet with a permanent injury to his health.

His chief work was done at Lausanne, where he labored
as pastor, teacher, and author for twenty-two years. By
order of the government of Bern a public disputation was
held Oct. 1 to 10, 1536.1 Viret, Farel, Calvin, Fabri, Mar-
court, and Caroli were called to defend the Reformed doc
trines. Several priests and monks were present, as Drogy,
Mimard, Michod, Loys, Berilly, and a French physician,

1 The acts of this disputation are printed in Vulliemin's Chroniqueur en I'an
1536, No. 17, pp. 315-326. The chapter of Lausanne protested, pp. 316, 325.

§ 63. PETER VIRET. 251

Claude Blancherose. A deputy of Bern presided. The
discussion was conducted in French. Farel prepared ten
Theses in which he asserts the supremacy of the Bible, justi
fication by faith alone, the high-priesthood and mediatorship
of Christ, spiritual worship without ceremonies and images,
the sacredness of marriage, Christian freedom in the obser
vance or non-observance of things indifferent, such as fasts
and feasts. Farel and Viret were the chief speakers. The
result was the introduction of the Reformation, November 1
of the same year. Viret and Pierre Caroli were appointed
preachers. Viret taught at the same time in the academy
founded by Bern in 1540.

Caroli stayed only a short time. He was a native of
France and a doctor of the Sorbonne, who had become nomi
nally a Protestant, but envied Viret for his popularity, took
offence at his sermons, and wantonly charged him, Farel, and
Calvin, with Arianism. He was deposed as a slanderer,
and at length returned to the Roman Church.1

In 1549 Beza was appointed second professor of theology
at the academy, and greatly strengthened Viret's hands.
Five young Frenchmen who were trained by them for the
ministry, and had returned to their native land to preach
the gospel, were seized at Lyons and burned, May 16, 1553,
notwithstanding the intercession of the Reformed Cantons
with King Henry II.

Viret attempted to introduce a strict discipline with the
ban, but found as much opposition as Calvin at Geneva and
Farel at Neuchatel. Bern disapproved the ban and also the
preaching of the rigorous doctrine of predestination. Beza
was discouraged, and accepted a call to Geneva (Septem
ber, 1558). Viret was deposed (Jan. 20, 1559). The pro
fessors of the academy and a number of preachers resigned.
Viret went to Geneva and was appointed preacher of the city

1 See his letter of submission to Pope Paul III., June, 1537, in Herminjarcl,
IV. 248 sqq.

252 THE IlEFOKMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

(March 2, 1559). His sermons were more popular and
impressive than those of Calvin, and better attended.

With the permission of Geneva, he labored for a while as
an evangelist, with great success, at Nismes, Montpellier, and
Lyons. He presided as Moderator over the fourth national
Synod of the Huguenots, August, 1563. He accepted a call
from Jeanne d'Albret to an academy at Orthez, in Beam,
which she founded in 1566. There, in 1571, he died, the last
of the triumvirate of the founders of the Reformed Church
in French Switzerland. He was twice married, first to a
lady of Orbe (1538) ; a second time, to a lady of Geneva
(1546). He was small, sickly, and emaciated, but fervent in
spirit, and untiring in labor.

Viret was an able and fruitful author, and shows an uncom
mon familiarity with classical and theological literature. He
wrote, mostly in the form of dialogues, expositions of the
Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer,
a summary of Christian doctrine, polemical books against the
Council of Trent, against the mass and other doctrines of
Romanism, and tracts on Providence, the Sacraments, and
practical religion. The most important is The Christian In
struction in the Doctrine of the G-ospel and the Laiv, and in
the true Philosophy and Theology both Natural and Supernat
ural (Geneva, 1564, 3 vols. fol.). His writings are exceed
ingly rare.1

§ 64. Antoine Froment.

A. FROMENT: Les actes et gestes merveilleux de la cite de Geneve, nouvellement
convertie a VEvangile. Edited by G. Revilliod, Geneve, 1854. A chronicle
from 1532 to 1536, fresh and lively, but partial and often inaccurate.
Much used by Merle d'Aubigne. Letters in HERMINJARD, Tom. IV.

There is no special monograph of Froment, and he is omitted in Beza's Icones
and also in Verheiden's Imagines et Elogia (Hagas, 1725), probably on
account of his spotted character. Sketches in La France Protest., VI.
723-733, and notices in Roget, Merle d'Aubigne', Gaberel, Polenz. A

1 C. Schmidt, in his monograph on Viret, pp. 56-71, gives a list of them
with extracts. Comp. PhiL Godet, I.e. 70 sqq.

§ 64. ANTOINE FROMENT. 253

good article by TH. SCHOTT in Herzog2, IV. 677-699, and by ROGET in
Lichtenberger's " Encycl.," V. 342-344. On his literary merits see PHIL.
GODET, Histoire Utteraire de la Suisse Romande, 82 sqq.

Antoine Froment was born in 1509 in Mens, in Dauphine*,
and was one of the earliest disciples of Farel, his country
man. He accompanied him in his evangelistic tours through
Switzerland, and shared in his troubles, persecutions, and
successes. In 1532 he went for the first time to Geneva,
and opened an elementary school in which he taught religion.
He advertised it by 'placards in these words : " A man has
arrived, who in the space of one month will teach anybody,
great or small, male or female, to read and write French;
who does not learn it in that time need not pay anything.
He will also heal many diseases without charge." The peo
ple flocked to him ; he was an able teacher, and turned his
lessons into addresses and sermons.

On new years day, in 1533, he preached his first sermon
on the public place, Molard, attacked the pope, priests, and
monks as false prophets (Matt. 1 : 15 sq.), but was inter
rupted by armed priests, and forced by the police to flee to a
retreat. He left the city by night, in February, but returned
again and again, and aided Farel, Viret, and Calvin.

Unfortunately he did not remain faithful to his calling, and
fell into disgrace. He neglected his pastoral duties, kept a
shop, and at last gave up the ministry. His colleagues,
especially Calvin, complained bitterly of him.1 In Decem
ber, 1549, he was engaged by Bonivard, the official historian
of the Republic, to assist him in his Chronicle, which was
completed in 1552. Then he became a public notary of
Geneva (1553). He got into domestic troubles. Soon after
the death of his first wife, formerly abbess of a convent, he
married a second time (1561), but committed adultery with
a servant, was deposed, imprisoned, and banished, 1562.

His misfortune seems to have wrought in him a beneficial

1 "Froment," says Farel, "a deyentfre en ivraie (ivresse)."

254 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

change. In 1572 he was permitted on application to return
to Geneva in view of his past services, and in 1574 he was
reinstated as notary. He died in 1581 (?) The Genevese
honored his memory as one, though the least important, and
the least worthy, of the four Reformers of their city. His
chief work is the Chronicle mentioned above, which supple
ments the Chronicles of Bonivard, and Sister Jeanne de
Jussie.1

1 Michelet (Hist, de France, XL 91) : " Nul livre plus amusant que la chronique
de Froment, hardi colporteur de la grace, naif et mordant satirique que les devotes
ge'nevoises, plaisamment devoilees par lui, essayerent de jeter au Rhone.'1

From the original oil painting in the University Library of Geneva. This
picture represents the Reformer as teaching or preaching, and is consid
ered the best.

256

CHAPTER VIIL
JOHN CALVIN AND HIS WORK.

The literature in § 58, pp. 225-231.
§ 65. John Calvin compared with the Older Reformers.

WE now approach the life and work of John Calvin, who
labored more than Farel, Viret, and Froment. He was the
chief founder and consolidator of the Reformed Church of
France and French Switzerland, and left the impress of his
mind upon all other Reformed Churches in Europe and
America.

Revolution is followed by reconstruction and consolidation.
For this task Calvin was providentially foreordained and
equipped by genius, education, and circumstances.

Calvin could not have done the work of Farel ; for he
was not a missionary, or a popular preacher. Still less
could Farel have done the work of Calvin ; for he was
neither a theologian, nor a statesman. Calvin, the French
man, would have been as much out of place in Zurich or
Wittenberg, as the Swiss Zwingli and the German Luther
would have been out of place and without a popular con
stituency in French-speaking Geneva. Each stands first and
unrivalled in his particular mission and field of labor.

Luther's public career as a reformer embraced twenty-nine
years, from 1517 to 1546 ; that of Zwingli, only twelve years,
from 1519 to 1531 (unless we date it from his preaching at
Einsiedeln in 1516) ; that of Calvin, twenty-eight years,
from 1536 to 1564. The first reached an age of sixty-two ;
the second, of forty-seven ; the third, of fifty-four. Calvin

257

258 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

was twenty-five years younger than Luther and Zwingli, and
had the great advantage of building on their foundation.
He had less genius, but more talent. He was inferior to them
as a man of action, but superior as a thinker and organizer.
They cut the stones in the quarries, he polished them in the
workshop. They produced the new ideas, he constructed
them into a system. His was the work of Apollos rather
than of Paul : to water rather than to plant, God giving the
increase.

Calvin's character is less attractive, and his life less dra
matic than Luther's or Zwingli's, but he left his Church in
a much better condition. He lacked the genial element of
humor and pleasantry; he was a Christian stoic: stern,
severe, unbending, yet with fires of passion and affection
glowing beneath the marble surface. His name will never
rouse popular enthusiasm, as Luther's and Zwingli's did at
the celebration of the fourth centennial of their birth ;
no statues of marble or bronze have been erected to his
memory; even the spot of his grave in the cemetery at
Geneva is unknown.1 But he surpassed them in consistency
and self-discipline, and by his exegetical, doctrinal, and
polemical writings, he has exerted and still exerts more
influence than any other Reformer upon the Protestant
Churches of the Latin and Anglo-Saxon races. He made
little Geneva for a hundred years the Protestant Rome and
the best-disciplined Church in Christendom. History fur
nishes no more striking example of a man of so little personal
popularity, and yet such great influence upon the people ; of
such natural timidity and bashfulness combined with such
strength of intellect and character, and such control over his
and future generations. He was by nature and taste a retir-

1 A plain stone, with the letters " J. C.," is pointed out to the stranger as
marking his resting-place in the cemetery of Plein Palais outside of the city,
but it is not known on what authority. He himself especially enjoined that
no monument should mark his grave.

§ 65. JOHN CALVIN. 259

ing scholar, but Providence made him an organizer and ruler
of churches.

The three leading Reformers were of different nationality
and education. Luther, the son of a German peasant, was
trained in the school of monasticism and mysticism, under
the influence of St. Augustin, Tauler, and Staupitz, and re
tained strong churchly convictions and prejudices. Zwingli,
the son of a Swiss country magistrate, a republican patriot,
an admiring student of the ancient classics and of Erasmus,
passed through the door of the Renaissance to the Reforma
tion, and broke more completely away from medievalism.
Calvin, a native Frenchman, a patrician by education and
taste, studied law as well as theology, and by his legal and
judicial mind was admirably qualified to build up a new
Christian commonwealth.

Zwingli and Luther met once face to face at Marburg, but
did not understand each other. The Swiss extended to the
German the hand of fellowship, notwithstanding their differ
ence of opinion on the mode of Christ's presence in the
Eucharist ; but Luther refused it, under the restraint of a
narrower dogmatic conscience. Calvin saw neither, but was
intimate with Melanchthon, whom he met at the Colloquies
of Worms and Regensburg, and with whom he kept up a
correspondence till his death. He rightly placed the German
Reformer, as to genius and power, above the Swiss, and
generously declared that, even if Luther should call him a
devil, he would still esteem Luther as a most eminent servant
of God. Luther saw, probably, only two books of Calvin, —
his reply to Sadolet and his tract on the Lord's Supper ; the
former he read, as he says, with singular delight (" cum
sinyulari voluptate"). How much more would he have been
delighted with his Institutes or Commentaries ! He sent
respectful greetings to Calvin through Melanchthon, who
informed him that he was in high favor with the Wittenberg
doctor.

260 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Calvin, in his theology, mediated between Zwingli and
Luther. Melanchthon mediated between Luther and Calvin ;
he was a friend of both, though unlike either in disposition
and temper, standing as a man of peace between two men of
war. The correspondence between Calvin and Melanchthon,
considering their disagreement on the deep questions of pre
destination and free-will, is highly creditable to their head
and heart, and proves that theological differences of opinion
need not disturb religious harmony and personal friendship.

The co-operative friendships between Luther and Melanch
thon, between Zwingli and CEcolampadius, between Farel and
Calvin, between Calvin, Beza, and Bullinger, are among the
finest chapters in the history of the Reformation, and reveal
the hand of God in that movement.

Widely as these Reformers differed in talent, temperament,
and sundry points of doctrine and discipline, they were great
and good men, equally honest and earnest, unselfish and
unworldly, brave and fearless, ready at any moment to go to
the stake for their conviction. They labored for the same
end : the renovation of the Catholic Church by leading it
back to the pure and perennial fountain of the perfect teach
ing and example of Christ.

§ 66. Calvin's Place in History.

1. Calvin was, first of all, a theologian. He easily takes
the lead among the systematic expounders of the Reformed
system of Christian doctrine. He is scarcely inferior to
Augustin among the fathers, or Thomas Aquinas among
the schoolmen, and more methodical and symmetrical than
either. Melanchthon, himself the prince of Lutheran divines
and "the Preceptor of Germany," called him emphatically
"the Theologian/'1

1 With this judgment the Strassburg editors of his \vorks agree, by calling
Calvin " theohgonnn principem et antesignamnn " (Opera, I. IX.). Scaliger says :
" Calvin is alone among theologians ; there is no ancient to compare with

§ 66. CALVIN'S PLACE IN HISTORY. 261

Calvin's theology is based upon a thorough knowledge
of the Scriptures. He was the ablest exegete among the
Reformers, and his commentaries rank among the very best
of ancient and modern times. His theology, therefore, is
biblical rather than scholastic, and has all the freshness of
enthusiastic devotion to the truths of God's Word. At the
same time he was a consummate logician and dialectician.
He had a rare power of clear, strong, convincing statement.
He built up a body of doctrines which is called after him,
and which obtained symbolical authority through some of
the leading Reformed Confessions of Faith.

Calvinism is one of the great dogmatic systems of the
Church. It is more logical than Lutheranism and Arminian-
ism, and as logical as Romanism. And yet neither Calvinism
nor Romanism is absolutely logical. Both are happily illogi
cal or inconsistent, at least in one crucial point : the former
by denying that God is the author of sin — which limits
Divine sovereignty ; the latter by conceding that baptismal
(i.e. regenerating or saving) grace is found outside of the
Roman Church — which breaks the claim of exclusiveness.1

The Calvinistic system is popularly (though not quite
correctly) identified with the Augustinian system, and shares
its merit as a profound exposition of the Pauline doctrines of
sin and grace, but also its fundamental defect of confining
the saving grace of God and the atoning work of Christ to
a small circle of the elect, and ignoring the general love of
God to all mankind (John 3 : 16). It is a theology of Divine
sovereignty rather than of Divine love ; and yet the love of

him." The' term 6 6fo\6yos, as a title of special distinction, was first given to
the Apostle John, and afterwards to Gregory Nazianzen ; in both cases with
special reference to the advocacy of the divinity of Christ (the 6e6rt]s TOV
Ao7ou). Calvin earned the title in a more comprehensive sense, as covering
the whole field of exegetical, dogmatic, and polemic theology.

1 Expressed in the formula of Cyprian : " extra ecclesiam [Romanam'] nulla
solus." Cyprian was logically right, but theologically wrong, when, in his
controversy with the Roman bishop, he denied the validity of heretical and
schismatical baptism.

262 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

God in Christ is the true key to his character and works,
and offers the only satisfactory solution of the dark mystery
of sin. Arminianism is a reaction against scholastic Calvin
ism, as Rationalism is a more radical reaction against scho
lastic Lutheranism.1

Calvin did not grow, before the public, like Luther and
Melanchthon, who passed through many doctrinal changes
and contradictions. He adhered to the religious views of his
youth unto the end of his life.2 His Institutes came like
Minerva in full panoply out of the head of Jupiter. The
book was greatly enlarged and improved in form, but remained
the same in substance through the several editions (the last
revision is that of 1559). It threw into the shade the earlier
Protestant theologies, — as Melanchthon's Loci, and Zwingli's
Commentary on the True and False Religion, — and it has
hardly been surpassed since. As a classical production of
theological genius it stands on a level with Origen's De Prin-
cipiis, Augustin's De Civitate Dei, Thomas Aquinas' Summa
Theologice, and Schleiermacher's Der Christliche Grlaube.

2. Calvin is, in the next place, a legislator and discipli
narian. He is the founder of a new order of Church polity,
which consolidated the dissipating forces of Protestantism,
and fortified it against the powerful organization of Roman
ism on the one hand, and the destructive tendencies of sec
tarianism and infidelity on the other.

In this respect we may compare him to Pope Hildebrand,
but with this great difference, that Hildebrand, the man of
iron, reformed the papacy of his day on ascetic principles,

1 Harnack excludes Calvinism and Arminianism from his Dogmengeschichte,
while he devotes to Socinianism, which is not nearly as important, no less
than thirty-eight pages (III. 653-691). A strange omission in this important
work, completed in 1890. He explains this omission (in a private letter to
me, dated March 3, 1891) on the ground that he includes Calvinism and
Arminianism in the Entwicklungsgeschichte des Protestantismus, which he did
not intend to treat in his Dogmengeschichte.

2 Beza says : " In the doctrine which he delivered at first, Calvin persisted
steadily to the last, scarcely making any change."

§ 66. CALVIN'S PLACE IN HISTORY. 263

and developed the mediaeval theocracy on the hierarchical
basis of an exclusive and unmarried priesthood; while Cal
vin reformed the Church on social principles, and founded a
theocracy on the democratic basis of the general priesthood of
believers. The former asserted the supremacy of the Church
over the State ; the latter, the supremacy of Christ over both
Church and State. Calvin united the spiritual and secular
powers as the two arms of God, on the assumption of the
obedience of the State to the law of Christ. The last form
of this kind of theocracy or Christocracy was established by
the Puritans in New England in 1620, and continued for
several generations. In the nineteenth century, when the
State has assumed a mixed religious and non-religious char
acter, and is emancipating itself more and more from the
rule of any church organization or creed, Calvin would, like
his modern adherents in French Switzerland, Scotland, and
America, undoubtedly be a champion of the freedom and in
dependence of the Church and its separation from the State.

Calvin found the commonwealth of Geneva in a condition
of license bordering on anarchy: he left it a well-regulated
community, which John Knox, the Reformer of Scotland,
from personal observation, declared to be "the most perfect
school of Christ that ever was in the earth since the days of
the Apostles," and which Valentin Andrese, a shining light
of the Lutheran Church, likewise from personal observation,
half a century after Calvin's death, held up to the churches
of Germany as a model for imitation.1

The moral discipline which Calvin introduced reflects the
severity of his theology, and savors more of the spirit of the
Old Testament than the spirit of the New. As a system, it
has long since disappeared, but its best results remain in the
pure, vigorous, and high-toned morality which distinguishes
Calvinistic and Presbyterian communities.

1 See these and other remarkable judgments quoted more fully in § 1 1

264 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

It is by the combination of a severe creed with severe
self-discipline that Calvin became the father of the heroic
races of French Huguenots, Dutch Burghers, English Puri
tans, Scotch Covenanters, and New England Pilgrims, who
sacrificed the world for the liberty of conscience. "A little
bit of the world's history," says the German historian Hausser,1
"was enacted in Geneva, which forms the proudest portion
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A number of
the most distinguished men in France, the Netherlands, and
Great Britain professed her creed ; they were sturdy, gloomy
souls, iron characters cast in one mould, in which there was
an interfusion of Romanic, Germanic, mediaeval, and modern
elements ; and the national and political consequences of the
new faith were carried out by them with the utmost rigor
and consistency." A distinguished Scotch divine (Principal
Tulloch) echoes this judgment when he says : 2 " It was the
spirit bred by Calvin's discipline which, spreading into France
and Holland and Scotland, maintained by its single strength
the cause of a free Protestantism in all these lands. It was
the same spirit which inspired the early and lived on in the
later Puritans ; which animated such men as Milton and
Owen and Baxter ; which armed the Parliament of England
with strength against Charles I., and stirred the great soul
of Cromwell in its proudest triumphs ; and which, while it
thus fed every source of political liberty in the Old World,
burned undimned in the gallant crew of the ' Mayflower,' -
the Pilgrim Fathers, — who first planted the seeds of civili
zation in the great continent of the West." 3

1 The Period of the Reformation, ed. by Oncken, transl. by Mrs. Sturgis
(New York, 1874), p. 255.

a Luther and Other Leaders of the Reformation, p. 264 sq. (3d ed. 1883).

3 George Bancroft, the historian of the United States, derives the free
institutions of America chiefly from Calvinism through the medium of Puri
tanism. It is certain that, in the colonial period, Calvinism was the most
powerful factor in the theology and religious life of America ; but since the
close of the eighteenth century, Arminian Methodism fairly divides the field

§ 66. CALVIN'S PLACE IN HISTORY. 265

Calvin was intolerant of any dissent, either papal or heret
ical, and his early followers in Europe and America abhorred
religious toleration (in the sense of indifference) as a pestif
erous error ; nevertheless, in their conflict with reactionary
Romanism and political despotism, they became the chief
promoters of civil and religious liberty based upon respect
for God's law and authority. The solution of the apparent
inconsistency lies in the fact that Calvinists fear God and
nothing else. In their eyes, God alone is great, man is but
a shadow. The fear of God makes them fearless of earthly
despots. It humbles man before God, it exalts him before
his fellow-men. The fear of God is the basis of moral self-
government, and self-government is the basis of true freedom.1

3. Calvin's influence is not confined to the religious and
moral sphere ; it extends to the intellectual and literary
development of France. He occupies a prominent position
in the history of the French language, as Luther, to a still
higher degree, figures in the history of the German language.
Luther gave to the Germans, in their own vernacular, a
version of the Bible, a catechism, and a hymn-book. Calvin
did not translate the Scriptures (although from his commen
taries a tolerably complete version might be constructed),
and his catechism and a few versified psalms never became

with it and is numerically the strongest denomination in the United States at
the present day. The Baptists, who come next in numerical strength, the
Presbyterians, the Congregationalists, and the Dutch and German Reformed
rank on the Calvinistic, but the Protestant Episcopalians and Lutherans,
predominantly on the Arminian side. The Episcopal Church, however, leaves
room for the moderate Calvinism of the Thirty-nine Articles (Art. 17), the
high Calvinism of the Lambeth Articles and Irish Articles, and the semi-
Catholic tendency of the Prayer-Book. The Lutheran Formula of Concord
is Calvinistic in the doctrine of unconditional election of believers and the
slavery of the human will, but Arminian in the doctrine of universal atone
ment and universal vocation, and semi-Catholic in the doctrine of the sacra*
ments (baptismal regeneration and the eucharistic presence).
1 Goethe gives classic expression to this truth in the lines : —

"In der Beschrdnkung erst zeigt sich der Meister,
Und das Gesetz nur kann uns Freiheit geben."

266 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

popular ; but he wrote classical French as well as classical
Latin, and excelled his contemporaries in both. He was
schooled in the Renaissance, but, instead of running into the
pedantic Ciceronianism of Bembo, he made the old Roman
tongue subservient to Christian thought, and raised the
French language to the dignity of one of the chief organs
of modern civilization, distinguished for directness, clearness,
precision, vivacity, and elegance.

The modern French language and literature date from
Calvin and his contemporary, FranQois Rabelais (1483-1553).
These two men, so totally different, reflect the opposite
extremes of French character. Calvin was the most relig
ious, Rabelais the most witty man, of his generation ; the
one the greatest divine, the other the greatest humorist, of
France : the one a Christian stoic, the other a heathen Epi
curean : the one represented discipline bordering on tyranny,
the other liberty running into license. Calvin created the
theological and polemical French style, — a style which suits
serious discussion, and aims at instruction and conviction.
Rabelais created the secular style, which aims to entertain
and to please.1

Calvin sharpened the weapons with which Bossuet and the
great Roman Catholic divines of the seventeenth century
attacked Protestantism, with which Rousseau and the phi
losophers of the eighteenth century attacked Christianity,
and with which Adolf Monod and Eugene Bersier of the
nineteenth century preached the simple gospel of the New
Testament.2

1 Calvin alludes once (in a letter of 1553) to the Pantagruel of Rabelais,
which was condemned as an obscene book.

2 Bossuet (in his Histoire des Variations} says : " Rien ne flattait davantage
Calvin que la gloire de bien e'crire. Donnons lui done, puisqu'il le veut tant cette
gloire, d 'avoir aussi bien tfcrit qu'hoinme de son siecle. . . . Sa plume etait plus
correcte, surtout en latin, que celle de Luther ; et son style, qui etait plus triste, etait
aussi plus suivi et plus chatle. Us excellaient I'un et Vautre a parler la langue de
leur pays." Martin, in his Histoire de France (Tom. VIII. 185 sq.), discusses
at some length the merits of Calvin for French prose, and calls him the first

§ 67. CALVIN'S LITERARY LABORS. 267

§ 67. Calvin's Literary Labors.

The best edition of Calvin's Opera by the Strassburg professors, BAUM,
CUNITZ, and REUSS (now all dead), embraces so far 48 quarto vols.
(1863-1892) ; the remaining volumes were prepared for publication by
Dr. Reuss before his death (1891). He wrote to me from Neuhof, near
Strassburg, July 11, 1887 : " Alles ist zum Druck vorbereitet und ganz fertiq
mit Prolegomenis, etc. Es bleibt nichts mehr zu thun iibrig als die Correctur
und die Fortsetzung des immer a jour yehaltenen Index rerum et nominum, et
locorum S. S., ivas ein anderer nach meinem Tode besorgen kann. Denn ich
werde die Vbllendung nicht erlcben. Fur den Schluss habe ich sogar noch ein
Supplement ausgearbeitet, ndmlich eine franzosische Bibel, extrahirt aus den
franzosischen Commentaren und Predigten, nebst alien Varianten der zu Cal
vin's Zeiten in Genf gedruckten Bibeln" Vol. 45 sqq. are edited by Erichson.

Older editions appeared at Geneva, 1617, in 7 vols., in 15 fol., and at Amster
dam, 1667-1671, in 9 vols. fol. The English translation, Edinburgh,
1843-1854, has 52 vols. 8°. Several works have been separately pub
lished in Latin, French, German, Dutch, English, and other languages.
See a chronological list in HENRY: Das Leben Joh. Calvins, vol. III.
Beilagen, 175-252, and in La France Prot. III. 545-636 (2d ed.).

The literary activity of Calvin, whether we look at the
number or at the importance of works, is not surpassed by
any ecclesiastical writer, ancient or modern, and excites
double astonishment when we take into consideration the
shortness of his life, the frailty of his health, and the mul
tiplicity of his other labors as a teacher, preacher, church
ruler, and correspondent. Augustin among the Fathers,
Thomas Aquinas among the Schoolmen, Luther and Me-
lanchthon among the Reformers, were equally fruitful ; but
they lived longer, with the exception of Thomas Aquinas.
Calvin, moreover, wrote in two languages with equal clear
ness, force, and elegance ; while Augustin and Thomas
Aquinas wrote only in Latin ; Luther was a master of Ger
man ; and Melanchthon, a master of Latin and Greek, but his
German is as indifferent as Luther's Latin.

Calvin's works may be divided into ten classes.

writer of the sixteenth century "par la dure'e et V influence de sa langue, de son
style." Pierre Larousse, in his Grand Dictionnaire (Tom. III. 186), calls Calvin
"fondateur de la Reforms en France et un des peres de noire, langue." Equally
favorable are the judgments of Sayous, Lacroix, Nisard, and Marc-Monnier.

268 THE INFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

1. EXEGETICAL WRITINGS. Commentaries on the Penta
teuch and Joshua, on the Psalms, on the Larger and Minor
Prophets ; Homilies on First Samuel and Job ; Commentaries
on all the books of the New Testament, except the Apoca
lypse. They form the great body of his writings.1

2. DOCTRINAL. The Institutes (Latin and French), first
published at Basel, 1536 ; 2d ed., Strassburg, 1539 ; 5th Latin
ed., Geneva, 1559. 2

Minor doctrinal works : Three Catechisms, 1537, 1542,
and 1545 ; On the Lord's Supper (Latin and French), 1541 ;
the Consensus Tigurinus, 1549 and 1551 (in both languages) ;
the Consensus Genevensis (Latin and French), 1552 ; the
Galilean Confession (Latin and French), 1559 and 1562.3

8. POLEMICAL and APOLOGETIC. 4

(«) Against the Roman Church : Response to Cardinal
Sadoletus, 1539; Against Pighius, on Free-will, 1543; On
the Worship of Relics, 1543 ; Against the Faculty of the
Sorbonne, 1544 ; On the Necessity of a Reformation, 1544 ;
Against the Council of Trent, 1547.

(6) Against the Anabaptists : On the Sleep of the Soul
(Psychopannychia), 1534 ; Brief Instruction against the
Errors of the Sect of the Anabaptists, 1544.

(<?) Against the Libertines : Adversus fanaticam et furio-
sam sectam Libertinorum qui se Spirituales vacant (also in
French), 1545.

(d) Against the Anti-Trinitarians : Defensio ortliodoxce fidei
S. Trinitatis adversus prodigiosos errores Serveti, 1554; Re-

1 Opera, vols. XXIII.-XLIV., contain the Old Testament Commentaries.
Those on the New Testament have been separately edited in Latin by Tho-
luck, 1833-'38, 7 vols. 8°.

2 Ibid. vols. I.-IV. (1863-'66). Latin and French. There are three Eng
lish translations of the Institutes, one by Thomas Norton (London, 1561, etc.),
another by John Allen (London, 1813, 3d ed. 1844, in 2 vols.), a third by
Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh, 1845-'46, 3 vols.). The work was also trans
lated into Italian, Spanish, Dutch, German, Hungarian, Greek, and other
languages. A new French ed. by Fr. Baumgartner, Gen, 1888.

3 Tractatus theologici minores, in Opera, vol. V., etc. 4 Vols. V.-IX.

§ 67. CALVIN'S LITERARY LABORS. 269

sponsion ad Qucestiones Gr. Blandatrce, 1558 ; Adversus Valen-
tinum Grentilem, 1561 ; Responsum ad nobiles Fratres Polonos
(Socinians) de controversies Mediatoris, 1561 ; Brevis admoni-
tio ad Fratres Polonos ne triplicem in Deo essentiam pro tribus
personis imaginando tres sibi Deos fabricent, 1563.

(<?) Defence of the Doctrine of Predestination against
Bolsec and Castellio, 1554 and 1557.

(/) Defence of the Doctrine of the Lord's Supper against
the Calumnies of Joachim Westphal, a Lutheran fanatic (two
Defensiones and an Admonitio ultima), 1555, 1556, 1557, and
a tract on the same subject against Hesshus (ad discutiendas
Heshusii nebulas*), 1561.

4. ECCLESIASTICAL and LITURGICAL. Ordinances of the
Church of Geneva, 1537 ; Project of Ecclesiastical Ordi
nances, 1541 ; Formula of Oath prescribed to Ministers,
1542 ; Order of Marriage, 1545 ; Visitation of the Churches
in the Country, 1546 ; Order of Baptism, 1551 ; Academic
Laws, 1559 ; Ecclesiastical Ordinances, and Academic Laws,
1561 ; Liturgical Prayers.1

5. SERMONS and HOMILIES. They are very numerous,
and were mostly taken down by auditors.2

6. MINOR TREATISES. His academic oration, for Cop in
Paris, 1533 ; Against Astrology, 1549 ; On Certain Scandals,
1550, etc.

7. CONSILIA on various doctrinal and polemical subjects.

8. LETTERS. Calvin's correspondence was enormous, and
fills ten volumes in the last edition of his works.3

1 Vol. X. Pars I. (1871), pp. 5-146, and vol. VI. 101-210.

2 Henry (II. 198) says that the Geneva library contains forty-four manu
script volumes of sermons of Calvin ; but the librarian Diodati informed him
afterwards (III. Preface, p. viii.) that there are only nine volumes left,
namely, the sermons between the years 1549-'51, 1555-'56, 1560-'61. The
sermons on the Decalogue, on Deuteronomy, on Job, on the Sacrifice of
Abraham, and many others were published during his life-time.

3 Vols. X.-XX. The Strassburg editors give in all 4271 letters of Calvin
and to Calvin. Herminjard has published so far his correspondence down to
1542 (the seventh volume appeared in 1886).

270 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

9. POETICAL. A hymn to Christ, free metrical versions
of several psalms, and an epic (Epinicion Christ o cantatum,
1541).1

10. Calvin edited Seneca, De dementia, with notes, 1532 ;
a French translation of Melanchthon's Loci, with preface,
1546 ; and wrote preface to Olive tan's French Bible, 1535,
etc.

The Adieus to the Little Council, and to the ministers of
Geneva, delivered on his death-bed in 1564, form a worthy
conclusion of the literary labors of this extraordinary teacher.

§ 68. Tributes to the Memory of Calvin.

Comp. the large collection of Opinions and Testimonies respecting the Writings
of Calvin, in the last volume of the English edition of his works published
by the Calvin Translation Society, Edinburgh, 1854, pp. 376-464. I have
borrowed from it several older testimonies.

No name in church history — not even Hildebrand's or
Luther's or Loyola's — has been so much loved and hated,
admired and abhorred, praised and blamed, blessed and
cursed, as that of John Calvin. Living in a fiercely polemic
age, and standing on the watch-tower of the reform move
ment in Western Europe, he was the observed of all observ
ers, and exposed to attacks from every quarter. Religious and
sectarian passions are the deepest and strongest. Melanch-
thon prayed for deliverance from " the fury of theologians."
Roman Catholics feared Calvin as their most dangerous
enemy, though not a few of them honorably admitted his
virtues. Protestants were divided according to creed and
prejudice : some regarding him as the first among the Re
formers and the nearest to Paul ; others detesting his favorite
doctrine of predestination. Even his share in the burning
of Servetus was defended as just during the sixteenth and

1 Vols. V. 423-428, and VI. 212-224. A French metrical translation of
the Epinicion appeared in Paris, 1555, under the title, Chant de Victoire chante
a Jesus Christ, etc.

§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MEMORY OF CALVIN. 271

seventeenth centuries, but is now universally deplored or
condemned.1

Upon the whole, the verdict of history is growingly in his
favor. He improves Upon acquaintance. Those who know
him best esteem him most. The fruits of his labors are
abundant, especially in the English-speaking world, and con
stitute his noblest monument. The slanderous charges of
Bolsec, though feebly re-echoed by Audin, are no longer be
lieved. All impartial writers admit the purity and integrity,
if not the sanctity, of his character, and his absolute freedom
from love of gain and notoriety. One of the most eminent
skeptical historians of France goes so far as to pronounce
him "the most Christian man " of his age. Few of the great
luminaries of the Church of God have called forth such
tributes of admiration and praise from able and competent
judges.

The following selection of testimonies may be regarded as
a fair index of the influence which this extraordinary man
has exerted from his humble study in " the little corner "
on the south-western border of Switzerland upon men of
different ages, nationalities, and creeds, down to the present
time.

1 La France Protestante par MM. Eugene et Emile Haag, Paris, 2d ed.
Tom. III. (1881), p. 508: " Trois partis religieu.r, divise's par des animosite's que
le temps n'a pas encore assoupies, nous out transnu's des documents sur la vie de cet
homme illustre. Les uns, depuis I'apostat Bolsec jusqu'au ne'o-catholique romantique
Audin, depuis le luthe'rien fanatique Westphal jusqu'aux ' vieitx f/enevois' Galiffe
pcre ct Jils, n'ecoutant que la voix d'une haine implacable ou d'une jalousie furieuse,
nous le peignent comme une espece de scele'rat souilte' des vices les plus honteux,
comme un despote altere de sang, tandis que les autres, depuis Theodore de Beze,
son collegue, jusqu'au pasteur Paul Henri/, de Berlin, son ze'le" disciple, ce'dant a
I'entrainenent d'une ainitie trop indulgente ou d'une admiration un pen exalte'e, nous
le pre'sentent comme un parfait type de la vertu.

" D' autres, dans ces derniers temps surtout, s'e'levant au-dessus d'e'troits prejuge's
dogmatiques, moins homines de parti que philosophes, ont entrepris de juger cette
grande figure historique avec I'impartialite' que commands I'histoire ; Us ont vu en
Calvin, non pas le fondateur d'une secte, mais une de ces hautes intelligences qui
apparaissent de loin en loin pour dominer une e'poque, ' et re'pandent sur les plus
grandes choses I' eel at de leur propre grandeur.' "

272 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

TRIBUTES OF CONTEMPORARIES (Sixteenth Century).

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546).
From a letter to Bucer, Oct. 14, 1539.

"Present my respectful greetings to Sturm and Calvin [then at Strass-
burg], whose books I have perused with singular pleasure (quorum libellos
singulari cum voluptate legi}"

MARTIN BUCER (1491-1551).

" Calvin is a truly learned and singularly eloquent man (yere doctus mireque
facundus tnr), an illustrious restorer of a purer Christianity (purioris Chris-
tianismi instaurator eximius)"

THEODORE BEZA (1519-1605).
From his Vita Calvini (Latin) at the close (Opera, XXI. 172).

" I have been a witness of Calvin's life for sixteen years, and I think I am
fully entitled to say that in this man there was exhibited to all a most beau
tiful example of the life and death of the Christian (longe pulcherrimum vere
Christiana turn vitce turn mortis exemplum), which it will be as easy to calumniate
as it will be difficult to emulate."

Compare also the concluding remarks of his French biography, vol. XXL
46 (Aug. 19,1564).

JOHN STURM of Strassburg (1507-1589).

"John Calvin was endued with a most acute judgment, the highest learn
ing, and a prodigious memory, and was distinguished as a writer by variety,
copiousness, and purity, as may be seen for instance from his Institutes of the
Christian Eeligion. ... I know of no work which is better adapted to teach
religion, to correct morals, and to remove errors."

JEROME ZANCHI (1516-1590).

An Italian convert to Protestantism. Professor at Strassburg and Heidelberg.
From a letter to the Landgrave of Hesse.

" Calvin, whose memory is honored, as all Europe knows, was held in the
highest estimation, not only for eminent piety and the highest learning (prce-
stanti pietate et maxima eruditione), but likewise for singular judgment on every
subject (singulari in rebus omnibus judicio clarissimus) "

Bishop JEWEL (1522-1571).
" Calvin, a reverend father, and worthy ornament of the Church of God."

JOSEPH SCALIGER (1540-1609).

" Calvin is an instructive and learned theologian, with a higher purity and
elegance of style than is expected from a theologian. The two most eminent

§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MEMORY OF CALVIN. 273

theologians of our times are John Calvin and Peter Martyr; the former of
whom has treated sound learning as it ought to be treated, with truth and
purity and simplicity, without any of the scholastic subtleties. Endued with
a divine genius, he penetrated into many things which lie beyond the reach
of all who are not deeply skilled in the Hebrew language, though he did not
himself belong to that class."

" O how well Calvin apprehends the meaning of the Prophets ! No one
better. ... O what a good book is the Institutes ! . . . Calvin stands alone
among theologians (Solus inter theologos Calvinus)."

This judgment of the greatest scholar of his age, who knew thirteen
languages, and was master of philology, history, chronology, philosophy, and
theology, is all the more weighty as he was one of the severest of critics.

FLORIMOND DE KJEMOND (1540-1602).
Counseiller du Roy au Parlement de Bordeaux. Roman Catholic.

From his L'histoire de (a naissanse, progrez, et decadence de I'he'resie de ce siecle,
divise en Jiuit livres, dediea notre saint Pere le Pape Pan! cinquieme. Paris,
1605. Bk. VII. ch. 10.

" Calvin had morals better regulated and settled than N., and shewed from
early youth that he did not allow himself to be carried away by the pleasures
of sense (piaisirs de la chair et du ventre}. . . . With a dry and attenuated
body, he always possessed a fresh and vigorous intellect, ready in reply, bold
in attack ; even in his youth a great faster, either on account of his health,
and to allay the headaches with which he was continually afflicted, or in order
to have his mind more disencumbered for the purposes of writing, studying,
and improving his memory. Calvin spoke little ; what he said were serious
and impressive words (ce n'estoit que propos serieux et qui portoyent coup} ; he
never appeared in company, and always led a retired life. He had scarcely
his equal ; for during twenty-three years that he retained possession of the
bishopric (I'evesche^) of Geneva, he preached every day, and often twice on
Sundays. He lectured on theology three times a week ; and every Friday he
entered into a conference which he called the Congregation. His remaining
hours were employed in composition, and answering the letters which came
to him as to a sovereign pontiff from all parts of heretical Christendom (qui
arrivoyent a luy de toute la Chre'tiente he're'tique, comme au Souveraine Pontife). . . .

" Calvin had a brilliancy of spirit, a subtlety of judgment, a grand mem
ory, an eminent erudition, and the power of graceful diction. . . . No man
of all those who preceded him has surpassed him in style, and few since have
attained that beauty and facility of language which he possessed."

ETIENNE PASQUIER (1528-1615).

Roman Catholic. Coneeiller et Avocat General du Roy en la Chambre dea Coraptes de Paris.
From Les Recfierches de la France, p. 769 (Paris, 1633).

..." He [Calvin] wrote equally well in Latin and French, the latter of
which languages is greatly indebted to him for having enriched it with an

274 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

infinite number of fine expressions (enrichie d'une infinite de beaux traits),
though I could have wished that they had been written on a better subject.
In short, a man wonderfully conversant with and attached to the books of
the Holy Scriptures, and such, that if he had turned his mind in the proper
direction, he might have been ranked with the most distinguished doctors
of the Church."

JACQUES AUGUSTE DE THOU (THUANUS, 1553-1617).

President of the Parliament of Paris. A liberal Roman Catholic and one of the framers of

the Edict of Nantes.

From the 36th book of his Historia sui Temporis (from 1543-1607).

"John Calvin, of Noyon in Picardy, a person of lively spirit and great
eloquence (d'un esprit vif et d'une grande eloquence},1 and a theologian of high
reputation among the Protestants, died of asthma, May 20 [27], 1564, at
Geneva, where he had taught for twenty-three years, being nearly fifty-six
years of age. Though he had labored under various diseases for seven years,
this did not render him less diligent in his office, and never hindered him
from writing."

De Thou has nothing unfavorable to say of Calvin.

TESTIMONIES OF LATER FRENCH WRITERS.

CHARLES DRELIXCOURT (1595-1669).

" In that prodigious multitude of books which were composed by Calvin,
you see no words thrown away; and since the prophets and apostles, there
never perhaps was a man who conveyed so many distinct statements in so
few words, and in such appropriate and well-chosen terms (en des mots si
propres et si bien choisis). . . . Never did Calvin's life appear to me more
pure or more innocent than after carefully examining the diabolical calum
nies with which some have endeavored to defame his character, and after
considering all the praises which his greatest enemies are constrained to bestow
on his memory."

MOSES AMTKAUT (1596-1645).

"That incomparable Calvin, to whom mainly, next to God, the Church
owes its Reformation, not only in France, but in many other parts of Europe."

Bishop JACQUES BENIGNE BOSSUET (1627-1704).

From his Histoire des Variations des Eglises Protestantes (1688), the greatest
polemical work in French against the Reformation.

" I do not know if the genius of Calvin would be found as fitted to excite
the imagination and stir up the populace as was that of Luther, but after the

1 Or, as quoted from another edition by the Strassburg editors (XXI. 11) :
"personnage d'un grand esprit et merveilleusement eloquent (admirabili facundia
prcedttns)." A French translation of the Historia appeared in 1734.

§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MEMORY OF CALVIN. 275

movement' had commenced, he rose in many countries, more especially in
France, above Luther himself, and made himself head of a party which hardly
yields to that of the Lutherans. By his searching intellect and his bold
decisions, he improved upon all those who had sought in this century to
establish a new church, and gave a new turn to the pretended reformation.

" It is a weak feeling which makes us desirous to find anything extraordi
nary in the death-beds of these people. God does not always bestow these
examples. Since he permits heresy for the trial of his people, it is not to be
wondered at that to complete this trial he allows the spirit of seduction to
prevail in them even to the end, with all the fair appearances by which it is
covered ; and, without learning more of the life and death of Calvin, it is
enough to know that he has kindled in his country a flame which not all the
blood shed on its account has been able to extinguish, and that he has gone
to appear before the judgment of God without feeling any remorse for a great
crime. . . .

" Let us grant him then, since he wishes it so much, the glory of having
written as well as any man of his age; let us even place him, if desired, above
Luther; for whilst the latter was in some respects more original and lively,
Calvin, his inferior in genius, appears to have surpassed him in learning.
Luther triumphed as a speaker, but the pen of Calvin was more correct,
especially in Latin, and his style, though severe, was much more consecutive
and chaste. They equally excelled in speaking the language of their coun
try, and both possessed an extraordinary vehemence. Each by his talents
has gained many disciples and admirers. Each, elated by success, has fancied
to raise himself above the Fathers ; neither could bear contradiction, and
their eloquence abounds in nothing more largely than virulent invective."

RICHARD SIMON (1638-1712).

One of the greatest critical and biblical scholars of the Roman Catholic Church.
From his Critical History of the Old Testament (Latin and French).

" As Calvin was endued with a lofty genius, we are constantly meeting with
something in his commentaries which delights the mind (quo animus rapitur) ;
and in consequence of his intimate and perfect acquaintance with human
nature, his ethics are truly charming, while he does his utmost to maintain
their accordance with the sacred text. Had he been less under the influence
of prejudice, and had he not been solicitous to become the leader and stand
ard-bearer of heresy, he might have produced a work of ie greatest useful
ness to the Catholic Church/'

The same passage, with additions, occurs in French. Simon says that no
author " had a better knowledge of the utter inability of the human heart,"
but that "he gives too much prominence to this inability," and "lets no
opportunity pass of slandering the Roman Church," so that part of his com
mentaries is "useless declamations" (declamations inutiles'). "Calvin displays
more genius and judgment in his works than Luther; he is more cautious,
and takes care not to make use of weak proofs, of which his adversaries
might take advantage. He is subtle to excess in his reasoning, and his com-

276 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

mentaries are filled with references skilfully drawn from the text — which are
capable of prepossessing the minds of those readers who are not profoundly
acquainted with religion."

Simon greatly underrates Calvin's knowledge of Hebrew when he says that
he knew not much more than the Hebrew letters. Dr. Diestel (Geschichte des.
Alien Test, in der christl. Kirche, 1869, p. 267) justly pronounces this a slander
which is refuted by every page of Calvin's commentaries. He ascribes to
him a very good knowledge of Hebrew: " ausgewdhlt mit einer sehr tiichtigen
hebraischen Sprachkenntniss."

PIERRE BAYLE (1647-1706).

Son of a Reformed minister, educated by the Jesuits of Toulouse, converted to Romanism,
returned to Protestantism, skeptical, the author of a Dictionnuire historique et critique.

" That a man who had acquired so great a reputation and so great an
authority should have had only a hundred crow'ns of salary, and have desired
no more, and that after having lived fifty-five years with every sort of fru
gality, he left to his heirs only the value of three hundred crowns, including
his library, is a circumstance so heroical, that one must be devoid of feeling
not to admire it, and one of the most singular victories which virtue and
greatness of soul have been able to achieve over nature, even among ministers
of the gospel. Calvin has left imitators in so far as regards activity of life,
zeal and affection for the interest of his party; they employ their eloquence,
their pens, their endeavors, their solicitations in the advancement of the
kingdom of God ; but they do not forget themselves, and they are, generally
speaking, an exemplification of the maxim that the Church is a good mother,
in whose service nothing is lost.

" The Catholics have been at last obliged to dismiss to the region of fable
the atrocious calumnies (les calomnies atroces') which they had uttered against
the moral character of Calvin ; their best authors now restrict themselves to
stating that if he was exempt from the vices of the body, he has not been so
from those of the mind, such as pride, passion, and slander. I know that the
Cardinal de Richelieu, or that dexterous writer who has published under his
name ' The Method of Conversation,' had adopted the absurdities of Bolsec.
But in general, eminent authors speak no more of that. The mob of authors
will never renounce it. These calumnies are to be found in the ' Systema
decretorum dogmaticorum,' published at Avignon in 1693, by Francis Porter.
Thus the work of Bolsec will always be cited as long as the Calvinists have
adversaries, but it will be sufficient to brand it eternally with calumny that
there is among Catholics a certain number of serious authors who will not
adopt its fables."

JEAN ALPHONSE TURRETIN (1617-1737).

Professor of theology of Geneva and representative of a moderate Calvinism. The most
distinguished theologian of his name, also called Turretin the younger, to distinguish
him from his father Frangois.

"John Calvin was a man whose memory will be blessed to the latest age
(vir benr.dictce in omne cevum memorice). . . . He has by his immense labors in-

§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MEMORY OF CALVIN. 277

structed and adorned not only the Church of Geneva, but the whole Reformed
world, so that not unfrequently all the Reformed Churches are in the gross
called after his name."

MONTESQUIEU (1689-1755).

Author of De r esprit des lois (the oracle of the friends of moderate freedom).
"The Genevese should bless the birthday of Calvin."

VOLTAIRE (1694-1778).
" Essai sur les moeurs et I'esprit des nations."

"The famous Calvin, whom we regard as the Apostle of Geneva, raised
himself up to the rank of Pope of the Protestants (s'e'rigea en pape des Protes
tants'). He was acquainted with Latin and Greek, and the bad philosophy of
his time. He wrote better than Luther, and spoke worse ; both were labo
rious and austere, but hard and violent (durs et emporle'a} . . . . Calvinism
conforms to the republican spirit, and yet Calvin had a tyrannical spirit. . . .
He demanded the toleration which he needed for himself in France, and he
armed himself with intolerance at Geneva. . . . The severity of Calvin was
united with the greatest disinterestedness (au plus grand de'sinte'ressement) ."

JEAN JAQUES ROUSSEAU (1712-1778).

A native of Geneva. The apostle of the French Revolution, as Calvin was the apostle of the
French Reformation.

From Lettres ecrites de la montagne.

" Quel homme fut jamais plus tranchant, plus imperieux, plus de'cisif, plus
divinement infaillible a son yr€ que Calvin, pour gui la moindre opposition . . . eto.it
toujours une ceuvre de Satan, un crime digne du feu ! "

D'ALEMBERT (1717-1783).

"Calvin justly enjoyed a great reputation — a literary man of the first
rank (homme de lettre du premier ordre) — writing in Latin as well as one
could do in a dead language, and in French with singular purity for his time
(avec une purete* singuliere pour son temps}. This purity, which our able gram
marians admire even at this day, renders his writings far superior to almost
all those of the same age, as the works of the Port-Royalists are distinguished
even at the present day, for the same reason, from the barbarous rhapsodies
of their opponents and contemporaries.

FREDERIC ANCILLON (1767-1837).
Tableau des He'volutions du Systeme Politique de I'Europe.

" Calvin was not only a profound theologian, but likewise an able legis
lator; the share which he had in the framing of the civil and religious laws
which have produced for several centuries the happiness of the Genevan
republic, is perhaps a fairer title to renown than his theological works ; and

278 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

this republic, celebrated notwithstanding its small size, and which knew how
to unite morals with intellect, riches with simplicity, simplicity with taste,
liberty with order, and which has been a focus of talents and virtues, has
proved that Calvin knew men, and knew how to govern them."

Fr. PIERRE GUILLAUME GUIZOT (1787-1874).

Celebrated French historian and statesman, of Huguenot descent.

From St. Louis et Calvin, pp. 361 sqq.

" Calvin is great by reason of his marvellous powers, his lasting labors,
and the moral height and purity of his character. . . . Earnest in faith, pure
in motive, austere in his life, and mighty in his works, Calvin is one of those
who deserve their great fame. Three centuries separate us from him, but it
is impossible to examine his character and history without feeling, if not
affection and sympathy, at least profound respect and admiration for one of
the great Reformers of Europe and of the great Christians of France."

By the same (1787-1874).
From Muse'e des protestants ce'lebres.

" Luther vint pour de'truire, Calvin pour fonder, par des ne'cessite's e'gales, mais
dijferentes. . . . Calvin fut I'homme de cette seconde e'poque de toutes les grandes
revolutions sociales, ou, apres avoir conquis par la guerre le terrain qui doit leur
appartenir, elles travaillent a s'y e'tablir par la paix, selon des principes et sous les
formes qui conviennent a leur nature. . . . L'ide'e ge'ne'rale selon laquelle Calvin
agit en brulant Servet e'tait de son siecle, et on a tort de la lui imputer."

FRANCOIS AUG. MARIE MIGNET (1796-1884).

Celebrated French historian and academician.
From his M'emoire sur I'e'tablissement de la Reforme a Geneve.

" Calvin fut, dans le protestantisme, apres Luther, ce qu'est la conse'quance apres
le principe ; dans la Suisse, ce qu'est la regie apres line revolution. . . . Calvin,
s'il n'avait ni le genie de I. 'invention ni celui de la conquete ; s'il n'e'tait ni un re'vo-
lutionnaire comme Luther ni un missionaire comme Farel, il avait line force de
logique qui devait pousser plus loin la reforme du premier, et une faculte' d'organi-
sation qui devait achever I'ceuvre du second. C'est par la qu'il renouvela la face du
protestantisme et qu'il constitua Geneve."

JULES MICHELET (1798-1874).
Histoire de France, vol. XI. (Les Guerres de Religion), Paris, 1884, pp. 88, 89, 92.

" C'e'tait un travailleur terrible, avec un air soujfrant, une constitution mise'rable
et de'bile, veillant, s'usant, se consumant, ne distinguant ni nuit ni jour. . . .

" C'e'tait une langue inou'ie [Calvin's French style], la nouvelle langue francaise.
Vingte ans apres Commines, trente ans avant Montaigne, deja la langue de Rous
seau. . . . Son plus redoutable attribut, c'est sa pe'ne'trante clarte, son extreme

§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MEMORY OF CALVIN. 279

lumiere d'argent, plutot d'acier, d'une lame qui brille, mais qui tranche. On sent
que cette lumiere vient du dedans, du fond de la conscience, d'un coeur dprement
convaincu, dont la logique est I'aliment. . . .

" Le fond de ce grand et puissant the'ologien e'tait d'etre un le'giste. II Ve'tait de
culture, d'esprit, de caractere. II en avail les deux tendances: Vappel an juste, au
vrai, un dpre besoin de justice; mais, d'autre part aussi, I' esprit dur, absolu, des
tribunaux d'alors, et il le porta dans la theologie. . . . La predestination de Calvin
se tronva, en pratique, line machine a faire des martyrs"

Box Louis HENRI MARTIN (1810-1883).

Histoire de France depuis les temps les plus recule's jusqu'cn 1789, Tom. VIII.
p. 325, of the fourth edition, Paris, 1860. Crowned by the French Academy.

Martin, in his standard work, thus describes the influence of Calvin upon
the city of Geneva : " Calvin ne la sauve pas seulement, mais conquiert a cette
petite ville une grandeur, une puissance morale immense. II en fait la capita le de
la Re'forme, autant que la Re'forme pent avoir une capitale, pour la moitie' du monde
protestant, avec une vaste influence, acceptc'e on subie, stir Uautre moitie'. Geneve
n'est rien par la population, par les armes, par le territoire : elle est. tout par
V esprit. Un seul avantage materiel lui garantit tons ses anantages moraux : son
admirable position, qui fait d'elle une petite France re'publicaine et protestante,
independante de la monarchic catholique de France et a I'abri de I'absorption monar-
chique et catholique; la Snisse protestante, allie'e ne'cessaire de la royaute' francaise
contre I'empereur, couvre Geneve par la politique vis-a-vis du roi et par I'e'pe'e contre
les maisons d'Autriche et de Savoie."

ERNEST RENAN (1823-1892).

Renan, a member of the French Academy, a brilliant genius, and one of the first historians
of France, was educated for the Roman Catholic priesthood, but became a skeptic. This
makes his striking tribute all the more significant.

From his article on John Calvin in his Etudes d'histoire religieuse, 7th ed.
Paris, 1880, pp. 337-357.

" Calvin was one of those absolute men, cast complete in one mould, who
is taken in wholly at a single glance: one letter, one action suffices for a
judgment of him. There were no folds in that inflexible soul, which never
knew doubt or hesitation. . . . Careless of wealth, of titles, of honors, indif
ferent to pomp, modest in his life, apparently humble, sacrificing everything
to the desire of making others like himself, I hardly know of a man, save
Ignatius Loyola, who could match him in those terrible transports. ... It
is surprising that a man who appears to us in his life and writings so unsym
pathetic should have been the centre of an immense movement in his" genera
tion, and that this harsh and severe tone should have exerted so great an
influence on the minds of his contemporaries. How was it, for example, that
one of the most distinguished women of her time, Hence of France, in her
court at Ferrara, surrounded by the flower of European wits, was captivated
by that stern master, and by him drawn into a course that must have been so
thickly strewn with thorns ? This kind of austere seduction is exercised by

280 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

those only who work with real conviction. Lacking that vivid, deep, sympa
thetic ardor which was one of the secrets of Luther's success, lacking the
charm, the perilous, languishing tenderness of Francis of Sales, Calvin suc
ceeded more than all, in an age and in a country which called for a reaction
towards Christianity, simply because he was the most Christian man of his
century (I'homme le plus chre'tien de son siecle, p. 342)."

FELIX BUXGENER (1814-1874).
Pastor of the national Church of Geneva, and author of several historical worka.

From Calvin, sa vie, son ceuvre et ses ecnts, Paris, 1862; English translation
(Edinburgh, 1863), pp. 338, 349.

" Let us not give him praise which he would not have accepted. God alone
creates ; a man is great only because God thinks fit to accomplish great things
by his instrumentality. Never did any great man understand this better than
Calvin. It cost him no effort to refer all the glory to God ; nothing indicates
that he was ever tempted to appropriate to himself the smallest portion of it.
Luther, in many a passage, complacently dwells on the thought that a petty
monk, as he says, has so well made the Pope to tremble, and so well stirred
the whole world. Calvin will never say any such thing ; he never even seems
to say it, even in the deepest recesses of his heart ; everywhere you perceive
the man, who applies to all things — to the smallest as to the greatest — the
idea that it is God who does all and is all. Read again, from this point of
view, the very pages in which he appeared to you the haughtiest and most
despotic, and see if, even there, he is anything other than the workman re
ferring all, and in all sincerity, to his master. . . . But the man, in spite of all
his faults, has not the less remained one of the fairest types of faith, of earnest
piety, of devotedness, and of courage. Amid modern laxity, there is no
character of whom the contemplation is more instructive ; for there is no man
of whom it has been said with greater justice, in the words of an apostle,
' he endured as seeing him who is invisible.' "

FROM DUTCH SCHOLARS.

JAMES ARMIXIUS (1560-1609).

The founder of Arminianism.

"Next to the study of the Scriptures which I earnestly inculcate, I exhort
my pupils to peruse Calvin's Commentaries, which I extol in loftier terms than
Helmich himself [a Dutch divine, 1551-1608]; for I affirm that he excels
beyond comparison (incomparabilem esse~) in the interpretation of Scripture,
and that his commentaries ought to be more highly valued than all that is
handed down to us by the library of the fathers ; so that I acknowledge him
to have possessed above most others, or rather above all other men, what may
be called an eminent spirit of prophecy (spiritum aliquem prophetic eximium),
His Institutes ought to be studied after the [Heidelberg] Catechism, as con
taining a fuller explanation, but with discrimination (cum delectu), like the
writings of all men."

§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MEMORY OF CALVIN. 281

DAN. GERDES (1698-1767).
Historia Evanyelii Renovati, IV. 41 sq. (Groningae, 1752).

" Calvin's labors were so highly useful to the Church of Christ, that there
is hardly any department of the Christian world to be found that is not full
of them, — hardly any heresy that has arisen which he has not successfully
encountered with that two-edged sword, the Word of God, or a portion of
Christian doctrine which he has not illustrated in a remarkable manner.
Certainly his commentaries on the Old and New Testaments are all that could
be desired ; every one of his sermons is full of unction ; his Institutes bear the
most complete and finished execution ; his doctrinal treatises are distinguished
by solidity; his critical works by warmth and fervor; his practical writings by
virtue and piety ; and his letters by mildness, prudence, gravity, and wisdom."

JUDGMENTS OF GERMAN SCHOLARS.
JOHN LAWRENCE MOSHEIM (1695-1755).

From the English translation of his Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, by
JAMES MURDOCK, D.D., New York, 1854, vol. III. 163, 167, 192.

" Calvin was venerated, even by his enemies, for his genius, learning, elo
quence, and other endowments, and moreover was the friend of Melanchthon.

" Few persons of his age will bear any comparison with Calvin for patient
industry, resolution, hatred of the Roman superstition, eloquence, and genius.
Possessing a most capacious mind, he endeavored not only to establish and
bless his beloved Geneva with the best regulations and institutions, but also to
make it the mother and the focus of light and influence to the whole Reformed
Church, just as Wittenberg was to the Lutheran community.

" The first rank among the interpreters of the age is deservedly assigned
to John Calvin, who endeavored to expound nearly the whole of the sacred
volume.

" His Institutes are written in a perspicuous and elegant style, and have
nothing abstruse and difficult to be comprehended in the arguments or mode
of reasoning."

JOHANNES VON MULLER (1752-1809).

The great historian of Switzerland, called " the German Tacitus."

Allgemeine Geschichte, Bk. III.

"John Calvin had the spirit of an ancient lawgiver, a genius and charac
teristic which gave him in part unmistakable advantages, and failings which
were only the excess of virtues, by the assistance of which he carried through
his objects. He had also, like other Reformers, an indefatigable industry,
with a fixed regard to a certain end, an invincible perseverance in principles
and duty during his life, and at his death the courage and dignity of an
ancient Roman censor. He contributed greatly to the development and
advance of the human intellect, and more, indeed, than he himself foresaw.
For among the Genevese and in France, the principle of free inquiry, on
which he was obliged at first to found his system, and to curb which he
afterwards strove in vain, became more fruitful in consequences than among
nations which are less inquisitive than the Genevese, and less daring than the
French. From this source were developed gradually philosophical ideas,
which, though they are not yet purified sufficiently from the passions and

282 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

views of their founders, have yet banished a great number of gloomy and
pernicious prejudices, and have opened us prospects of a pure practical
wisdom and better success for the future."

Fr. AUGUST THOLUCK (1799-1877).
Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 3d ed. 1831, p. 19.

"In his [Calvin's] Exposition on the Epistle to the Romans are united
pure Latinity, a solid method of unfolding and interpreting, founded on the
principles of grammatical science and historical knowledge, a deeply pene
trating faculty of mind, and vital piety."

Dr. TWESTEN (1789-1876).

The successor of Schleiermacher in the chair of systematic theology at Berlin, and an
orthodox Lutheran in the United Evangelical Church of Prussia.

From his Dogmatik der evangelisch Lutherischen Kirche, I. 216 (4th ed. Ham
burg, 1838).

After speaking very highly and justly of Melanchthon and John Gerhard,
Twesten thus characterizes Calvin's Institutes : —

" Mehr aus einem Gusz, als Melanchthon' s Loci, die reife Frucht eines tief
religiosen und dcht ivissenschaftlichen Geistes, mit groszer Klarheit, Kraft und
Schonheit der Darstellung geschrieben, einfach in der Anlage, reich und grundlich
in der Ansfiihrung, verdient es neben jenen auch in unserer Kirche als eins der
vorziiglichsten Werke auf dem Gebiete der dogmatischen Literatur iiberhaupt studirt
zu werden."

PAUL HENRY.

Doctor of theology and pastor of a French Reformed Church in Berlin, author of two
learned biographies of Calvin: a large one, in Svols. (1833-1844), which is chiefly valuable
as a collection of documents, and a popular one in 1 vol.

From Das Leben Johann Calvins (Hamburg and Gotha, 1846), pp. 443 sqq.

" The whole tendency of Calvin was practical ; learning was subordinate ;
the salvation of the world, the truth was to him the main thing. His spiritual
tendency was not philosophical, but his dialectical bent ran principles to their
utmost consequences. He had an eye to the minutest details. His former
study of law had trained him for business. . . . He was a watchman over the
whole Church. . . . All his theological writings excel in acuteness, dialectics,
and warmth of conviction. He had great eloquence at command, but de
spised the art of rhetoric. . . . Day and night he was occupied with the work
of the Lord. He disliked the daily entreaties of his colleagues to grant him
self some rest. He continued to labor through his last sicknesses, and only
stopped dictating a week before his death, when his voice gave out. . . . All
sought his counsel; for God endowed him with such a happy spirit of wisdom
that no one regretted to have followed his advice. How great was his erudi
tion ! How marvellous his judgment! How peculiar his kindness, which
came to the aid even of the smallest and lowliest, if necessary, and his
meekness and patient forbearance with the imperfections of others ! "

§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MEMORY OF CALVIN. 283

Dr. L. STAHELIN.

Johannes Calvin. Leben und ausgewdhlte Schriften. Elberfeld, 1863. Vol. II.

pp. 365-393.

This description of Calvin's character as a man and as a Christian is
faithful in praise and censure, but too profuse to be inserted. Dr. Stahelin
emphasizes the logic of his intellect and conscience, his firm assurance of
eternal election, his constant sense of the nearness of God, "the majesty"
of his character, the predominance of the Old Testament feature, his resem
blance to Moses and the Hebrew Prophets, his irritability, anger, and con-
temptuousness, relieved by genuine humility before God, his faithfulness to
friends, his life of unceasing prayer, his absolute disinterestedness and conse
cration to God. He also quotes the remarkable testimony of Renan, that
Calvin was "the most Christian man in Christendom."

Dr. FRIEDRICH TRECHSEL (1805-1885).
Die Protestantischen Antitrinitarier. Heidelberg, 1839-1844 (I. 177).

" People have often supposed that they were insulting Calvin's memory by
calling him the Pope of Protestantism ! He was so, but in the noblest sense
of the expression, through the spiritual and moral superiority with which the
Lord of the Church had endowed him for its deliverance ; through his unwea
ried, universal zeal for God's honor; through his wise care for the edifying
of the kingdom of Christ; in a word, through all which can be comprehended
in the idea of the papacy, of truth and honor."

LUDWIG HATJSSER (1818-1867).

Professor of history at Heidelberg.

The Period of the Reformation, edited by Oncken (1868, 2d ed. 1880), trans
lated by Mrs. Sturge, New York, 1874 (pp. 241 and 244).

"As the German Reformation is connected with Martin Luther, and the
Swiss with Ulrich Zwingli, that of the Romanic and "Western European
nations is connected with John Calvin, the most remarkable personage of the
time. He was not equal either to Luther or Zwingli in general talent, mental
vigor, or tranquility of soul ; but in logical acuteness and talent for organiza
tion he was at least equal, if not superior, to either. He settled the basis for
the development of many states and churches. He stamped the form of the
Reformation in countries to which he was a stranger. The Frencli date the
beginnings of their literary development from him, and his influence was not
restricted to the sphere of religion, but embraced their intellectual life in
general; no one else has so permanently influenced the spirit and form of
their written language as he.

"At a time when Europe had no solid results of reform to show, this little
State of Geneva stood up as a great power; year by year it sent forth apostles
into the world, who preached its doctrines everywhere, and it became the most
dreaded counterpoise to Rome, when Rome no longer had any bulwark to
defend her. The missionaries from this little community displayed the lofty

284 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

and dauntless spirit which results from stoical education and training ; they
bore the stamp of a self-renouncing heroism which was elsewhere swallowed
up in theological narrowness. They were a race with vigorous bones and
sinews, for whom nothing was too daring, and who gave a new direction to
Protestantism by causing it to separate itself from the old traditional mo
narchical authority, and to adopt the gospel of democracy as part of its
creed. It formed a weighty counterpoise to the desperate efforts which the
ancient Church and monarchical power were making to crush the spirit of
the Reformation.

"It was impossible to oppose Caraffa, Philip II., and the Stuarts, with
Luther's passive resistance ; men were wanted who were ready to wage war to
the knife, and such was the Calvinistic school. It everywhere accepted the
challenge ; throughout all the conflicts for political and religious liberty, up
to the time of the first emigration to America, in France, the Netherlands,
England, and Scotland, we recognize the Genevan school."

Dr. KARL RUDOLF HAGEXBACH (1801-1874).

Swiss Reformed, of Basel.
Geschichte des Reformation, 5th ed. edited by Nippold, Leipzig, 1887, p. 605.

" Calvin hatte so zu sagen kein irdisches Vaterland, dessen Freiheit er, wie
Zwingli, zu wahren sich bewogen fand. Das himmlische Vaterland, die Stadt
Gottes war es, in welche er alle zu sammeln sich berufen sah. Ihm gait nicht
Grieehe, nicht Skythe, nicht Franzose, nicht Deutscher, nicht Eidgenosz, sondern
einzig und allein die neue Kreatur in Christo. Es ware thoricht, ihm solches zum
Vorwurf zu machen. Es ist vielmehr richtig bemerkt icorden, wie Calvin, obgleich
er nicht die Grb'sze Genfs als solche gesucht, dennoch dieser Stadt zu einer welt-
geschichtlichen Grosze verholfen, die sie ohne ihn niemals erreicht haben wiirde.
Aber so viel ist richtig, dasz das Reinmenschliche, das im Familien- und Volks-
leben seine Wurzel hat, und das durch das Christenthum nicht verdrdngt, aber wohl
veredelt werden soil, bei Calvin weniger zur Entwickelung kam. Manner des stren-
gen Gedankens und einer rigiden Gesetzlichkeit werden geneigt sein, Calvin tiber
Luther und Zwingli zu erheben. Und er hat auch seine unbestreitbaren Vorziige.
Poetisch angelegte Gemiitsmenschen aber werden anfdnglich Calvin und seiner vom
Naturboden losgelosten, abstrakten Frdmmigkeit gegeniiber sich eines gewissen F)~ds-
telns nicht erwehren kb'nnen und einige Zeit brauchen, bis sie es iiberwunden haben ;
wdhrend sie sich zu dem herzgewinnenden Luther sogleich und auch dann noch hinge-
zogenfuhlen, wenn er schdumt und vor Zorn nbersprudelt."

Dr. Is. DORNER (1809-1884).
Geschichte der Protestantischen Theologie. Miinchen, 1867, pp. 374, 376.

"Calvin was equally great in intellect and character, lovely in social life,
full of tender sympathy and faithfulness to friends, yielding and forgiving
towards personal offences, but inexorably severe when he saw the honor of
God obstinately and malignantly attacked. He combined French fire and
practical good sense with German depth and soberness. He moved as freely

§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MEMORY OF CALVIN. 285

in the world of ideas as in the business of Church government. He was an
architectonic genius in science and practical life, always with an eye to the
holiness and majesty of God." (Condensed translation.)

Dr. KAHNIS (Lutheran, 1814-1888).
Die Luther ische Dogmatik. Leipzig, 1801, vol. II. p. 490 sq.

" The fear of God was the soul of his piety, the rock-like certainty of his
election before the foundation of the world was his power, and the doing of
the will of God his single aim, which he pursued with trembling and fear. . . .
No other Reformer has so well demonstrated the truth of Christ's word that,
in the kingdom of God, dominion is service. No other had such an energy of
self-sacrifice, such an irrefragable conscientiousness in the greatest as well as
the smallest things, such a disciplined power. This man, whose dying body
was only held together by the will flaming from his eyes, had a majesty of
character which commanded the veneration of his contemporaries."

F. W. KAMPSCHULTE (1831-1872).

Catholic Professor of History in the University of Bonn from 1860 to 1872, and author of
an able and impartial work on Calvin, which was interrupted by his death. Vols. II.
and III. were never published. He protested against the Vatican decrees of 1870.

Johann Calvin. Seine Kirche und sein jStaat in Genf. Erster Band, Leipzig,

1869, p. 274 sq.

" Calvin's Lehrbuch der christlichen Religion ist ohne Frage das hervorragendste
und bedeutendste Erzeugniss, welches die reformatorische Literatur des sechszehnten
Jahrhunderts auf dem Gebiete der Dogmatik aufzuweisen hat. Schon ein ober-
flachlicher Vergleich Idsst uns den gewaltigen Fortschritt erkennen, den es gegeniiber
den bisherigen Leistungen auf diesem Gebiete bezeichnet. Statt der unvollkommenen,
nach der einen oder andern Seite unzuldnglichen Versuche Melanchthon's, Zwingli's,
Farel's erhalten wir aus Calvin's Hand das Kunstwerk eines, wenn auch nicht
harmonisch in sich abgeschlossenen, so doch wohlgegliederten, durchgebildeten Sys
tems, das in alien seinen Theilen die leitenden Grundgedanken widerspiegelt und
von vollstdndiger Beherrschung des Stqffes zeugt. Es hatte eine unverkennbare
Berechtigung , wenn man den Verfasser der Institution als den Aristoteles der Refor
mation bezeichnete. Die ausserordentliche Belesenheit in der biblischen und patris-
tischen Literatur, wie sie schon in den friiheren Ausgaben des Werkes hervortritt,
setzt in Erstaunen. Die Methode ist lichtvoll und klar, der Gedankengang streng
logisch, uberall durchsichtig, die Eintheilung und Ordnung des Stojfes dem leitenden
Grundgedanken entsprechend ; die Darstellung schreitet ernst und gemessen vor und
mmmt, obschon in den spateren Ausgaben mehr gelehrt als anziehend, mehr auf den
Verstand als auf das Gemiith berechnet, doch zuweilen einen hoheren Schwung an.
Calvin's Institution enthdlt Abschnitte, die dem Schonsten, icas von Pascal und
Bossuet geschrieben warden ist, an die Seite gestellt werden kb'nnen : Stellen, wie
jene uber die Erhabenheit der heiligen Schrift, iiber das Elend des gefallenen Men-
schen, iiber die Bedeutung des Gebetes, werden nie verfehlen, auf den Leser einen
tiefen Eindruck zu machen. Auch von den katholischen Gegnern Calvin's sind
diese Vorziige anerkannt und manche Abschnitte seines Werkes sogar benutzt worden.

286 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Man begreift es vollkommen, wenn er selbst mit dem Gefiihl der Befriedigung und
des Stolzes auf sein WerTc blickt und in seinen iibrigen Schriften gem auf das
' Lehrbuch ' zuriickverweist."

" Und dock beschleicht tins, trotz aller Bewunderung, zu der uns der Verfasser
nothigt, bei dem Durchlesen seines Werkes ein unheimliches Gefuhl, Ein System,
das von dem furchtbaren Gedanken der doppelten Predestination ausgeht, welches
die Menschen ohne jede Riicksicht auf das eigene Verhalten in Erwdhlte und Ver-
worfene scheidet und die Einen wie die Anderen zu blossen Werkzeugen zur Verherr-
lichung der gottlichen Majestdt macht . . . ein solches System kann unmoglich
dem deukenden, Belehrung und Trost suchenden Menschengeist innere Ruhe und
Befriedigung gewahren"

BAUM, CUNITZ, and REUSS.
JOB. CALVINI Opera, vol. I. p. ix.

The Strassburg editors of Calvin's Works belong to the modern liberal
school of theology.

"Si Lutherum virum maximum, si Zwinglium civem Christianum nulli secun-
dum, si Melanthonem prceceptorem doctissimum merito appellaris, Calvinum jure
vocaris THEOLOGORUM PRINCIPEM ET ANTESIGNANUM. In hoc enim quis linguarum
et literarum prcesidia, quis disciplinarum fere omnium non miretur orbem ? De
cujus copia doctrince, rerumque dispositione aptissime concinnata, et argumentorum
vi ac validitate in dogmaticis ; de ingenii acumine et subtilitate, atque nunc f estiva
nunc mordaci salsedine in polemicis, de felidssima perspicuitate, sobrietate ac saga-
ciiate in exegeticis, de nervosa eloquentia et libertate in parceneticis ; de prudentia
sapientiaque legislatoria in ecclesiis constituencies, ordinandis ac regendis incom-
parabile, inter omnes viros doctos et de rebus evangelicis libere sentientes jam abunde
constat. Imo inter ipsos adversarios romanos nullus hodie est, vel mediocri hannn
rerum cognitione imbutus vel tantilla judicii praiditus cequitate, qui argumentorum
et sententiarum ubertatem, proprietatem verborum sermonemque castigatum, stili
denique, tarn latini quam gallici, gravitatem et luciditatem non admiretur. Quce
cuncta quum in singulis fere scriptis, turn prcecipue relucent in immortali ilia Insti-
tutione religionis Christiana?, quce omnes ejusdem generis expositions inde ab apos-
tolorum temporibus conscriptas, adeoque ipsos Melanthonis Locos theologicos, absque
omni controversia longe antecellit atque eruditum et ingenuum lectorem, etiamsi alicubi
secus senserit, hodieque quasi vinctum trahit et vel invitum rapit in admirationem,"

TRIBUTES FROM EXGLISH WRITERS (MOSTLY EPISCOPAL).

RICHARD HOOKER (1553-1600).
From his Preface to the Ecclesiastical Polity (Keble's ed. vol. I. p. 158).

"Whom [Calvin], for my own part, I think incomparably the wisest man
that ever the French Church did enjoy since the hour it enjoyed him. His
bringing up was in the study of the civil law. Divine knowledge he gathered
not by hearing or reading so much as by teaching others. For, though thou
sands were debtors to him, as touching knowledge of this kind, yet he to none,

§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MEMORY OF CALVIN. 287

but only to God, the Author of that most blessed fountain, the Book of Life,
and of the admirable dexterity of wit, together with the helps of other learn
ing, which were his guides. — We should be injurious unto virtue itself, if we
did derogate from them whom their industry hath made great. Two things
of principal moment there are, which have deservedly procured him honor
throughout the world : the one, his exceeding pains in composing the Institu
tions of the Christian Religion ; the other, his no less industrious travails for
exposition of Holy Scripture, according unto the same Institutions. . . .

"Of what account the Master of Sentences [Peter Lombard] was in the
Church of Rome ; the same and more, among the preachers of Reformed
Churches, Calvin had purchased; so that the perfectest divines were judged
they which were skilfullest in Calvin's writings ; his books almost the very
canon to judge both doctrine and discipline by."

Bishop LANCELOT ANDREWES (1555-1626).

" Calvin was an illustrious person, and never to be mentioned without a
preface of the highest honor."

Dr. JOHN DONNE (1573-1631).
Royal Chaplain and Dean of St. Paul's, London; distinguished as a poet and divine.

" St. Augustin, for sharp insight and conclusive judgment in exposition of
places of Scripture, which he always makes so liquid and pervious, hath
scarce been equalled therein by any of all the writers in the Church of God,
except Calvin may have that honor, for whom (when it concerns not points
of controversy) I see the Jesuits themselves, though they dare not name him,
have a high degree of reverence."

Bishop HALL (1574-1656).
Works, III. 516.

" Reverend Calvin, whose judgment I so much honor, that I reckon him
among the best interpreters of Scripture since the Apostles left the earth."

Bishop SANDERSON (1587-1663).

" When I began to set myself to the study of Divinity as my proper
business, Calvin's Institutions were recommended to me, as they generally
were to all young scholars in those times, as the best and most perfect system
of Divinity, and the fittest to be laid as a groundwork in the study of the
profession. And, indeed, my expectation was not at all ill-deemed in the
study of those Institutions."

RICHARD BAXTER (1615-1691).

"I know no man, since the Apostles' days, whom I value and honor more
than Calvin, and whose judgment in all things, one with another, I more
esteem and come nearer to."

288 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Bishop WILSON of Calcutta.
From Sermon preached on the death of the Rev. Basil Wood.

" Calvin's Commentaries remain, after three centuries, unparalleled for force
of mind, justness of exposition, and practical views of Christianity."

Archbishop LAWRENCE.
From his Bampton Lectures.

"Calvin was both a wise and a good man, inferior to none of his contem
poraries in general ability, and superior to almost all in the art, as well as
elegance, of composition, in the perspicuity and arrangement of his ideas, the
structure of his periods, and the Latinity of his diction."

Archdeacon JULIUS CHARLES HARE (1795-1855).

He had, of all Englishmen, the best knowledge and highest appreciation of Luther.
From his Mission of the Comforter, II. 449.

"Calvin's Commentaries, although they too are almost entirely doctrinal
and practical, taking little note of critical and philosophical questions, keep
much closer to the text [than Luther's], and make it their one business to
bring out the meaning of the words of Scripture with fulness and precision.
This they do with the excellence of a master richly endowed with the word of
wisdom and with the word of knowledge, and from the exemplary union of a
severe masculine understanding with a profound insight into the spiritual
depths of the Scriptures, they are especially calculated to be useful in coun
teracting the erroneous tendencies of an age, when we seem about to be
inundated with all that was fantastical and irrational in the exegetical mys
ticism of the Fathers, and are bid to see divine power in all allegorical
cobwebs, and heavenly life in artificial flowers. I do not mean to imply an
adoption or approval of all Calvin's views, whether on doctrinal or other
questions. But we may happily owe much gratitude and love, and the deep
est intellectual obligations, to those whom at the same time we may deem to
be mistaken on certain points."

THOMAS H. DYER.

The Life of John Calvin. London, 1850, p. 533 sq.

" That Calvin was in some respects a really great man, and that the elo
quent panegyric of his friend and disciple Beza contains much that is true,
will hardly be denied. In any circumstances his wonderful abilities and
extensive learning would have made him a shining light among the doctors
of the Reformation; an accidental, or, as his friends and followers would say,
a providential and predestinated visit to Geneva, made him the head of a
numerous and powerful sect. Naturally deficient in that courage which forms
so prominent a trait in Luther's character, and which prompted him to beard
kings and emperors face to face, Calvin arrived at Geneva at a time when
the rough and initiatory work of Reform had already been accomplished by

§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MEMORY OF CALVIN. 289

his bolder and more active friend Farel. Some peculiar circumstances in
the political condition of that place favored the views which he seems to have
formed very shortly after his arrival. . . .

" The preceding narrative has already shown how, from that time to the
hour of his death, his care and labor were constantly directed to the consoli
dation of his power, and to the development of his scheme of ecclesiastical
polity. In these objects he was so successful that it may be safely affirmed
that none of the Reformers, not even Luther himself, attained to so absolute
and extensive an influence."

Archdeacon FREDERIC W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S.

History of Interpretation. London, 1886, pp. 342-344.

" The greatest exegete and theologian of the Reformation was undoubtedly
CALVIN. He is not an attractive figure in the history of that great movement.
The mass of mankind revolt against the ruthless logical rigidity of his
' horrible decree.' They fling it from their belief with the eternal * God
forbid ! ' of an inspired natural horror. They dislike the tyranny of theo
cratic sacerdotalism [?] which he established at Geneva. Nevertheless his
Commentaries, almost alone among those of his epoch, are still a living force.
They are far more profound than those of Zwingli, more thorough and scien
tific, if less original and less spiritual, than those of Luther. In spite of his
many defects — the inequality of his works, his masterful arrogance of tone,
his inconsequent and in part retrogressive view of inspiration, the manner
in which he explains away every passage which runs counter to his dogmatic
prepossessions — in spite, too, of his 'hard expressions and injurious declama
tions' — he is one of the greatest interpreters of Scripture who ever lived.
He owes that position to a combination of merits. He had a vigorous intel
lect, a dauntless spirit, a logical mind, a quick insight, a thorough knowledge
of the human heart, quickened by rich and strange experience; above all, a
manly and glowing sense of the grandeur of the Divine. The neatness, pre
cision, and lucidity of his style, his classic training and wide knowledge, his
methodical accuracy of procedure, his manly independence, his avoidance of
needless and commonplace homiletics, his deep religious feeling, his careful
attention to the entire scope and context of every passage, and the fact that
he has commented on almost the whole of the Bible, make him tower above
the great majority of those who have written on Holy Scripture. Nothing
can furnish a greater contrast to many helpless commentaries, with their
congeries of vacillating variorum annotations heaped together in aimless mul
tiplicity, than the terse and decisive notes of the great Genevan theologian.
... A characteristic feature of Calvin's exegesis is its abhorrence of hollow
orthodoxy. He regarded it as a disgraceful offering to a God of truth. He
did not hold the theory of verbal dictation. He will never defend or harmo
nize what he regards as an oversight or mistake in the sacred writers. He
scorns to support a good cause by bad reasoning. . . . But the most charac
teristic and original feature of his Commentaries is his anticipation of modern
criticism in his views about the Messianic prophecies. He saw that the

290 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

words of psalmists and prophets, while they not only admit of but demand
' germinant and springing developments/ were yet primarily applicable to the
events and circumstances of their own days."

SCOTCH TRIBUTES.

In Scotland, the land of John Knox, who studied at the feet of Calvin, his principles were
most highly appreciated and most fully carried out.

Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON (1788-1856).

" Looking merely to his learning and ability, Calvin was superior to all
modern, perhaps to all ancient, divines. Succeeding ages have certainly not
exhibited his equal. To find his peer we must ascend at least to Aquinas or
Augustin."

Dr. WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM (1805-1861).

Principal of the New College and Professor of Church History in Edinburgh. Presbyterian

of the Free Church.

Reformers, and the Theology of the Reformation. Edinburgh, 1866,
pp. 292, 294, 299.

" John Calvin was by far the greatest of the Reformers with respect to the
talents he possessed, the influence he exerted, and the service he rendered to
the establishment and diffusion of important truth. . . .

" The systematizing of divine truth, and the full organization of the Chris
tian Church according to the word of God, are the great peculiar achieve
ments of Calvin. For this work God eminently qualified him, by bestowing
upon him the highest gifts both of nature and of grace ; and this work he
was enabled to accomplish in such a way as to confer the greatest and most
lasting benefits upon the Church of Christ, and to entitle him to the commen
dation and the gratitude of all succeeding ages. . . .

" Calvin certainly was not free from the infirmities which are always found
in some form or degree even in the best men ; and in particular, he occasion
ally exhibited an angry impatience of contradiction and opposition, and some
times assailed and treated the opponents of the truth and cause of God with
a violence and invective which cannot be defended, and should certainly not
be imitated. Pie was not free from error, and is not to be implicitly followed
in his interpretation of Scripture, or in his exposition of doctrine. But
whether we look to the powers and capacities with which God endowed him,
the manner in which he employed them, and the results by which his labors
have been followed, — or to the Christian wisdom, magnanimity, and devoted-
ness which marked his character and generally regulated his conduct, there
is probably not one among the sons of men, beyond the range of those whom
God miraculously inspired by his Spirit, who has stronger claims upon our
veneration and gratitude."

In another place which I cannot refer to, Cunningham, the successor of
Chalmers, says : " Calvin is the man who, next to St. Paul, has done most
good to mankind."

§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MEMOEY OF CALVIN. 291

Dr. JOHN TULLOCH (1823-1886).

Principal of St. Mary's College in the University of St. Andrews, of the Established Church

of Scotland.

Luther and other Leaders of the Reformation. Edinburgh and London, 3d ed.
1883, pp. 234-237, 243, 245.

" Thus lived and died Calvin, a great, intense, and energetic character,
who, more than any other of that great age, has left his impress upon the
history of Protestantism. Nothing, perhaps, more strikes us than the con
trast between the single naked energy which his character presents and of
which his name has become symbolical, and the grand issues which have
gone forth from it. Scarcely anywhere else can we trace such an impervious
potency of intellectual and moral influence emanating from so narrow a
centre.

" There is in almost every respect a singular dissimilarity between the
Genevan and the Wittenberg reformer. In personal, moral, and intellectual
features, they stand contrasted — Luther with his massive frame and full, big
face and deep melancholy eyes ; Calvin, of moderate stature, pale and dark
complexion, and sparkling eyes, that burned nearly to the moment of his
death (Beza: Vita Ca/t?.). Luther, fond and jovial, relishing his beer and
hearty family repasts with his wife and children ; Calvin, spare and frugal,
for many years taking only one meal a day, and scarcely needing sleep. In
the one, we see a rich and complex and buoyant and affectionate nature
touching humanity at every point, in the other, a stern and grave unity of
moral character. Both were naturally of a somewhat proud and imperious
temper, but the violence of Luther is warm and boisterous, that of Calvin
is keen and zealous. It might have been a very uncomfortable thing, as
Melanchthon felt, to be exposed to Luther's occasional storms ; but after the
storm was over, it was pleasant to be folded once more to the great heart that
was sorry for its excesses. To be the object of Calvin's dislike and anger
was something to fill one with dread, not only for the moment, but long after
wards, and at a distance, as poor Castellio felt when he gathered the pieces
of driftwood on the banks of the Rhine at Basel.

"In intellect, as in personal features, the one was grand, massive, and
powerful, through depth and comprehension of feeling, a profound but exag
gerated insight, and a soaring eloquence ; the other was no less grand and
powerful, through clearness and correctness of judgment, vigor and consist
ency of reasoning, and weightiness of expression. Botli are alike memorable
in the service which they rendered to their native tongue — in the increased
compass, flexibility, and felicitous mastery which they imparted to it. The
Latin works of Calvin are greatly superior in elegance of style, symmetry of
method, and proportionate vigor of argument. He maintains an academic
elevation of tone, even when keenly agitated in temper; while Luther, as
Mr. Hallam has it, sometimes descends to mere 'bellowing in bad Latin.'
Yet there is a coldness in the elevation of Calvin, and in his correct and well-
balanced sentences, for which we should like ill to exchange the kindling
though rugged paradoxes of Luther. The German had the more rich and

292 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

teeming — the Genevan the harder, more serviceable, and enduring mind.
When interrupted in dictating for several hours, Beza tells us that he could
return and commence where he had left off ; and that amidst all the multi
plicity of his engagements, he never forgot what he required to know for the
performance of any duty.

"As preachers, Calvin seems to have commanded a scarcely less powerful
success than Luther, although of a different character — the one stimulating
and rousing, ' boiling over in every direction ' — the other instructive, argu
mentative, and calm in the midst of his vehemence (Beza : Vita <7a/t\).
Luther flashed forth his feelings at the moment, never being able to compose
what might be called a regular sermon, but seizing the principal subject, and
turning all his attention to that alone. Calvin was elaborate and careful in
his sermons as in everything else. The one thundered and lightened, filling
the souls of his hearers now with shadowy awe, and now with an intense glow
of spiritual excitement ; the other, like the broad daylight, filled them with
a more diffusive though less exhilarating clearness. . . .

"An impression of majesty and yet of sadness must ever linger around
the name of Calvin. He was great and we admire him. The world needed
him and we honor him ; but we cannot love him. He repels our affections
while he extorts our admiration ; and while we recognize the worth, and the
divine necessity, of his life and work, we are thankful to survey them at a
distance, and to believe that there are also other modes of divinely governing
the world, and advancing the kingdom of righteousness and truth.

" Limited, as compared with Luther, in his personal influence, apparently
less the man of the hour in a great crisis of human progress, Calvin towers
far above Luther in the general influence over the world of thought and the
course of history, which a mighty intellect, inflexible in its convictions and
constructive in its genius, never fails to exercise."

WILLIAM LINDSAY ALEXANDER, D.D., F.R.S.E. (1808-1884).
Professor of Theology and one of the Bible Revisers. Congregationalist.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed. vol. IV. (1878) p. 721.

" Calvin was of middle stature ; his complexion was somewhat pallid and
dark; his eyes, to the latest clear and lustrous, bespoke the acumen of his
genius. He was sparing in his food and simple in his dress ; he took but
little sleep, and was capable of extraordinary efforts of intellectual toil. His
memory was prodigious, but he used it only as the servant of his higher
faculties. As a reasoner he has seldom been equalled, and the soundness and
penetration of his judgment were such as to give to his conclusions in prac
tical questions almost the appearance of predictions, and inspire in all his
friends the utmost confidence in the wisdom of his counsels. As a theologian
he stands on an eminence which only Augustin has surpassed ; whilst in his
skill as an expounder of Scripture, and his terse and elegant style, he pos
sessed advantages to which Augustin was a stranger. His private character
was in harmony with his public reputation and position. If somewhat severe
and irritable, he was at the same time scrupulously just, truthful, and stead-

§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MEMORY OF CALVIN. 293

fast ; he never deserted a friend or took an unfair advantage of an antago
nist; and on befitting occasions he could be cheerful and even facetious
among his intimates."

TESTIMONIES OF AMERICAN DIVINES.

Dr. HENRY B. SMITH (1815-1877).
Professor of Theology in the Union Theological Seminary, New York. Presbyterian.

From his Address before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church,
St. Louis, 1855, delivered by request of the Presbyterian Historical Society.
See Faith and Philosophy, pp. 98 and 99.

"Though the Reformation, under God, began with Luther in the power
of faith, it was carried on by Calvin with greater energy, and with a more
constructive genius, both in theology and in church polity, as he also had a
more open field. The Lutheran movement affected chiefly the centre and
the north of Europe ; the Reformed Churches were planted in the west of
Europe, all around the ocean, in the British Isles, and by their very geograph
ical site were prepared to act the most efficient part, and to leap the walls of
the old world, and colonize our shores.

" Nothing is more striking in a general view of the history of the Reformed
Churches than the variety of countries into which we find their characteristic
spirit, both in doctrine and polity, penetrating. Throughout Switzerland it
was a grand popular movement. There is first of all, Zwingli, the hero of
Zurich, already in 1516 preaching against the idolatrous veneration of Mary,
a man of generous culture and intrepid spirit, who at last laid down his life
upon the field of battle. In Basle we find (Ecolampadius, arid also Bullinger
[in Zurich], the chronicler of the Swiss reform. Farel aroused Geneva to
iconoclasm by his inspiring eloquence.

"Thither comes in 1536, from the France which disowned him, Calvin, the
mighty law-giver, great as a preacher, an expositor, a teacher and a ruler ;
cold in exterior, but burning with internal fire ; who produced at twenty-six
years of age his unmatched Institutes, and at thirty-five had made Geneva,
under an almost theocratic government, the model city of Europe, with its
inspiring motto, 'post tenebras lux.' He was feared and opposed by the liber
tines of his day, as he is in our own. His errors were those of his own times :
his greatness is of all times. Hooker calls him 'incomparably the wisest
man of the French Church ; ' he compares him to the ' Master of Sentences/
and says, ' that though thousands were debtors to him as touching divine
knowledge, yet he was to none, only to God.' Montesquieu declares that
'the Genevese should ever bless the day of his birth.' Jewel terms him 'a
reverend Father, and worthy ornament of the Church of God/ ' He that will
not honor the memory of Calvin,' says Mr. Bancroft, ' knows but little of the
origin of American liberty.' Under his influence Geneva became the 'fertile
seed-plot' of reform for all Europe; with Zurich and Strassburg, it was the
refuge of the oppressed from the British Isles, and thus indoctrinated England
and ourselves with its own spirit."

294 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

From Dr. SMITH'S article "Calvin" in Appleton's American Cyclopaedia.

" Calvin's system of doctrine and polity has shaped more minds and en
tered into more nations than that of any other Reformer. In every land it
made men strong against the attempted interference of the secular power
with the rights of Christians. It gave courage to the Huguenots ; it shaped
the theology of the Palatinate ; it prepared the Dutch for the heroic defence
of their national rights; it has controlled Scotland to the present hour;
it formed the Puritanism of England ; it has been the basis of the New
England character; and everywhere it has led the way in practical reforms.
His theology assumed different types in the various countries into which it
penetrated, while retaining its fundamental traits."

Dr. GEORGE P. FISHER (b. 1827).

Professor of Church History in Yale Divinity School, New Haven. Congregationalist.
From his History of the Reformation. New York, 1873, pp. 206 and 238.

" When we look at his extraordinary intellect, at his culture — which
opponents, like Bossuet, have been forced to commend — at the invincible
energy which made him endure with more than stoical fortitude infirmities of
body under which most men would have sunk, and to perform, in the midst
of them, an incredible amount of mental labor; when we see him, a scholar
naturally fond of seclusion, physically timid, and recoiling from notoriety
and strife, abjuring the career that was most to his taste, and plunging, with
a single-hearted, disinterested zeal and an indomitable will, into a hard, pro
tracted contest ; and when we follow his steps, and see what things he effected,
we cannot deny him the attributes of greatness. . . .

" His last days were of a piece with his life. His whole course has been
compared by Vinet to the growth of one rind of a tree from another, or to a
chain of logical sequences. He was endued with a marvellous power of
understanding, although the imagination and sentiments were less roundly
developed. His systematic spirit fitted him to be the founder of an enduring
school of thought. In this characteristic he may be compared with Aquinas.
He has been appropriately styled the Aristotle of the Reformation. He was
a perfectly honest man. He subjected his will to the eternal rule of right, as
far as he could discover it. His motives were pure. He felt that God was
near him, and sacrificed everything to obey the direction of Providence. The
fear of God ruled in his soul ; not a slavish fear, but a principle such as
animated the prophets of the Old Covenant. The combination of his qualities
was such that he could not fail to attract profound admiration and reverence
from one class of minds, and excite intense antipathy in another. There is
no one of the Reformers who is spoken of, at this late day, with so much
personal feeling, either of regard or aversion. But whoever studies his life
and writings, especially the few passages in which he lets us into his confi
dence and appears to invite our sympathy, will acquire a growing sense of
his intellectual and moral greatness, and a tender consideration for his errors.'

§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MEMORY OF CALVIN. 295

G. G. HEBRICK, D.D.

Congregational Minister of Mount Vernon Church, Boston.
From Some Heretics of Yesterday. Boston, 1890, pp. 210 sqq.

"Calvin gathered up the spiritual and intellectual forces that had been
started by the Reformation movement, and marshalled and systematized them,
and bound them into unity by the mastery of his logical thought, as the river
gathers cloud and rill, and snow-drift and dew-fall, and constrains them
through its own channel into the unity and directness of a powerful current.
The action of Luther was impulsive, magnetic, popular, appealing to senti
ment and feeling, that of Calvin was logical and constructive, appealing to
understanding and reason. He was the systematizer of the Reformation. . . .

" Calvin's work was national, and more ; he gave to the Reformation a
universality like that of the gigantic system with which they [the Reformers]
all were at war. Calvin, more than any other man that has ever lived,
deserves to be called the Pope of Protestantism. While he was still living
his opinions were deferred to by kings and prelates, and even after he was
dead his power was confessed by his enemies. The papists called his Institutes
The Heretics' Koran. . . . He set up authority against authority, and main
tained and perpetuated what he set up by the inherent clearness and energy
and vigor of his own mental conceptions. The authority of the Romish Pope
was based upon the venerable tradition of the past that had grown up by the
accretion of ages ; the authority of the Protestant Pope rested upon a logical
structure which he himself built up, out of blocks hewn from alleged Scrip
ture assertion and legitimate inferences therefrom. . . .

"The man himself is one of the wonders of all time, and his work was
admirable, beyond any words of appreciation that it is possible for me to
utter. For while he himself tolerated no differences of theological opinion,
and would have bound all thought by his own logical chain, this nineteenth
century is as much indebted to his work as it is to that of Luther. That work
constituted the world's largest step towards democratic freedom. It set the
individual man in the presence of the living God, and made the solitary soul,
whether of prince or pauper, to feel its responsibility to, and dependence
upon, Him alone who from eternity has decreed the sparrow's flight or fall.
Out of this logical conception of the equality of all men in the presence of
Jehovah, he deduced the true republican character of the Church ; a theory
to which all Americans, and especially we of New England, owe our rich
inheritance. He gave to the world, what it had not before, a majestic and
consistent conception of a kingdom of God ruling in the affairs of men ; of
the beauty and the blessedness of a true Christian state; of the possibility
of the city of God being one day realized in the universal subordination of
human souls to divine authority. . . ."

For testimonies bearing upon Calvin's system of discipline, see below, § 110.

CHAPTER IX.

FROM FRANCE TO SWITZERLAND.
§ 69. Calvirfs Youth and Training.

CALVINI Opera, vol. XXI. (1879). — On Noyon and the family of Calvin,
JACQUES LE VASSEUR (Dr. of theology, canon and dean of the cathedral
of Noyon) : Annales de I'e'glise cathe'drale de Noyon. Paris, 1633, 2 vols. 4°.
— JACQUES DESMAY (Dr. of the Sorbonne and vicar-general of the diocese
of Rouen) : Remarques sur la vie de Jean Calvin tire'es des Registres de
Noyon, lieu de sa naissance. Rouen, 1621.

THOMAS M'CRIE (d. 1835) : The Early Years of Calvin. A Fragment. 1509-
1536. Ed. by William Ferguson. Edinburgh, 1880 (199 pp.). A post
humous work of the learned biographer of Knox and Melville.

ABEL LEFRANC : La Jeunesse de Calvin. Paris (33 rue de Seine), 228 pp.

Comp. the biographies of Calvin by HENRY, large work, vol. I. chs. I.-VIII.
(small ed. 1846, pp. 12-29); DYER (1850), pp. 4-10; STAHELIN (1862)
I. 3-12; *KAMPSCHULTE (1869), I. 221-225.

" As David was taken from the sheepf old and elevated to
the rank of supreme authority; so God having taken me
from my originally obscure and humble condition, has reck
oned me worthy of being invested with the honorable office
of a preacher and minister of the gospel. When I was yet a
very little boy, my father had destined me for the study of
theology. But afterwards, when he considered that the
legal profession commonly raised those who follow it, to
wealth, this prospect induced him suddenly to change his
purpose. Thus it came to pass, that I was withdrawn from
the study of philosophy and was put to the study of law.
To this pursuit I endeavored faithfully to apply myself, in
obedience to the will of my father ; but God, by the secret
guidance of his providence, at length gave a different direc-

296

§ 69. CALVIN'S YOUTH AND TRAINING. 297

tion to my course. And first, since I was too obstinately
devoted to the superstitions of popery to be easily extricated
from so profound an abyss of mire, God by a sudden conver
sion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame*
which was more burdened in such matters than might have
been expected from one at my early period of life. Having
thus received some taste and knowledge of true godliness, I
was immediately inflamed with so intense a desire to make
progress therein, that though I did not altogether leave off
other studies, I yet pursued them with less ardor." l

This is the meagre account which Calvin himself incident
ally gives of his youth and conversion, in the Preface to his
Commentary on the Psalms, when speaking of the life of
David, in which he read his own spiritual experience. Only
once more he alludes, very briefly, to his change of religion.
In his Answer to Cardinal Sadoletus, he assures him that
he did not consult his temporal interest when he left the
papal party. "I might," he said, "have reached without
difficulty the summit of my wishes, namely, the enjoyment
of literary ease, with something of a free and honorable
station. " 2

Luther indulged much more freely in reminiscences of his
hard youth, his early monastic life, and his discovery of the
doctrine of justification by faith alone, which gave peace
and rest to his troubled conscience.

John Calvin 3 was born July 10, 1509, — twenty-five years
after Luther and Zwingli, — at Noyon, an ancient cathedral
city, called Noyon-la-Sainte, on account of its many churches,
convents, priests, and monks, in the northern province of
Picardy, which has given birth to the crusading monk, Peter
of Amiens, to the leaders of the French Reformation and

1 Opera, XXXI. 21 (Latin and French). 2 Opera, V. 388 sqq.

3 The Latinized form of Cauvin or Chauvin. Alcuin, one of his assumed
names, is an anagram of Calvin. See La France Protest., III. 518, note. He
assumed the name Calvinus in his book on Seneca, 1532.

298 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

counter-Reformation (the Ligue), and to many revolution
ary as well as reactionary characters.1

His father, Gerard Cauvin, a man of hard and severe char
acter, occupied a prominent position as apostolic secretary to
the bishop of Noyon, proctor in the Chapter of the diocese,
and fiscal procurator of the county, and lived on intimate
terms with the best families of the neighborhood.2 His
mother, Jeanne Lefranc, of Cambrai, was noted for her
beauty and piety, but died in his early youth, and is not
mentioned in his letters. The father married a second time.
He became involved in financial embarrassment, and was
excommunicated, perhaps on suspicion of heresy. He died
May 26 (or 25), 1531, after a long sickness, and would have
been buried in unconsecrated soil but for the intercession of
his son, Charles, who gave security for the discharge of his
father's obligations.3

Calvin had four brothers and two sisters.4 Two of his
brothers died young, the other two received a clerical edu
cation, and were early provided with benefices through the
influence of the father.

Charles, his elder brother, was made chaplain of the cathe
dral in 1518, and cure of Roupy, but became a heretic or

1 Michelet (Histoire de France, XI. 88) calls Picardy " un pays fe'cond en
re'volutionnaires, en brouillants amis de Vhumanite." Lefranc (p. 24) : " Les deux
mowements contraires, la Re'forme francaise et ce qui la combattit arec le plus
d'acharnement, la Ligue, sont tie's dans le meme pays." Noyon lies 67 miles
N.N.E. of Paris, is enclosed with gardens, has a large old cathedral, a bishop's
palace, a hospital, a seminary, several public fountains, manufactures of fine
linens, tulle, oil, leather, and a brisk trade, with a population of about 6000.
From Lippincott's Gazetteer, p. 1620.

2 " De notaire apostolique, la premiere charge qu'il obtint, il devint successivement
notaire du chapitre, qreffier de I'officialite, procureur fiscal du comte et promoteur
du chapitre. C'est a Noyon, en quelque sorte, le fac-totum du clerge'." Lefranc,
p. 2.

3 Lefranc, pp. 17 and 199. Herminjard, II. 394. Bolsec, in his Histoire
de Calvin, calls Gerard Cauvin " un tres-exe'crable blasphe'mateur de Dieu." Per-
haps he confounded him with his eldest son, Charles.

4 See the genealogical table in Henry, vol. III. ; Beilage, 16, p. 174.

§ 69. CALVIN'S YOUTH AND TRAINING. 299

infidel, was excommunicated in 1531, and died Oct. 1, 1537,
having refused the sacrament on his death-bed. He was
buried by night between the four pillars of a gibbet.1

His younger brother, Antoine, was chaplain at Tournerolle,
near Traversy, but embraced the evangelical faith, and, with
his sister, Marie, followed the Reformer to Geneva in 1536.
Antoine kept there a bookstore, received the citizenship gra
tuitously, on account of the merits of his brother (1546), was
elected a member of the Council of Two Hundred (1558),
and of the Council of the Sixty (1570), also one of the direc
tors of the hospital, and died in 1573. He was married three
times, and divorced from his second wife, the daughter of a
refugee, on account of her proved adultery (1557). Calvin
had innocently to suffer for this scandal, but made him and
his five children chief heirs of his little property.2

The other sister of Calvin was married at Noyon, and
seems to have remained in the Roman Catholic Church.

A relative and townsman of Calvin, Pierre Robert, called
Olivetan, embraced Protestantism some years before him,
and studied Greek and Hebrew with Bucer at Strassburg in
1528.3 He joined Farel in Neuchatel, and published there
his French translation of the Bible in 1535.

More than a hundred years after Calvin's death, another
member of the family, Eloi Cauvin, a Benedictine monk, re
moved from Noyon to Geneva, and embraced the Reformed
religion (June 13, 1667). 4

These and other facts show the extent of the anti-papal

1 " Carolus ejus frater et presbyter Novioduni mortuus noctu et clam sepultus
est inter guatuor columnas furcce publicce quiet Eucharistiam sumere noluerat."
Papire Masson, Vita Calv.; Lefranc, pp. 18-21 and 210.

2 Beza, at the close of his Latin Vita Calv. (in Calvin's Opera, XXI. 171),
and Lefranc, I.e., p. 184.

3 Letter of Bucer to Farel, May 1, 1528, in Herminjard, II. no. 232, and
Opera, X. Ft. I. p. 1. The "juvenis Nov iodunensis " there mentioned was not
Calvin, as Kampschulte (I. 231) conjectures, but probably Olivetan. There
is no trace of such an early visit of Calvin to Strassburg.

4 La France Prot. III. 639.

300 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

sentiment in the family of Cauvin. In 1561 a large number
of prominent persons of Noyon were suspected of heresy,
and in 1562 the Chapter of Noyon issued a profession of
faith against the doctrines of Calvin.1

After the death of Calvin, Protestantism was completely
crushed out in his native town.

Calvin received his first education with the children of
the noble family de Mommor (not Montmor), to which he
remained gratefully attached. He made rapid progress in
learning, and acquired a refinement of manners and a certain
aristocratic air, which distinguished him from Luther and
Zwingli. A son of de Mommor accompanied him to Paris,
and followed him afterwards to Geneva.

His ambitious father destined him first for the clerical
profession. He secured for him even in his twelfth year
(1521) a part of the revenue of a chaplaincy in the cathedral
of Noyon.2 In his eighteenth year Calvin received, in addi
tion, the charge of S. Martin de Marteville (Sept. 27, 1527),
although he had not yet the canonical age, and had only
received the tonsure.

Such shocking irregularities were not uncommon in those
days. Pluralism and absenteeism, though often prohibited

1 See the list and the profession in Lofranc, 216 sqq. He goes, however,
too far when he says (p. x. sq.) : " Ce qui ressort d'une etude attentive des faits,
c'est gue Calvin est sorti de'ja prolestant de sa ville natale. C'est dans ce centre
qu'il puisa ses ide'es. II y trouva tout d'abord Uappui le plus ferine, ses amis les
plus chauds et ses lieutenants les plus de'voue's. A. un moment donne', la moitie' de la
population se de'clara pour lui. Chose remarquable, un nombre considerable des ses
compatriots, et par mi eux les personnages les plus en vue, le suivirent fusqu'h Geneve.
Durant toute sa vie, Calvin conserva d'actifs rapports avec sa ville natale et ceux
de ses fideles qui y e'taient reste's." Calvin was not converted before 1532.
See § 72.

2 Desmay (quoting from the Registres of Xoyon, see Op. XXI. 189) :
" Jean Calvin obtient une portion du revenue de la chapelle de la Ge'sine de la Vierge
fonde'e dans la cathe'drale de Nouon." There were four chaplains at Noyon.
The first two had to say mass alternately every morning. John Calvin, not
being ordained, had to pay a priest to take his place. Lefranc, p. 10. Zwingli
received a papal pension even after he had begun his work of reform. See
above, § 8, p. 31 sq. This is all wrong, but was not so considered at that time.

§ 69. CALVIN'S YOUTH AND TRAINING. 301

by councils, were among the crying abuses of the Church.
Charles de Hangest, bishop of Noyon, obtained at fifteen
years of age a dispensation from the pope " to hold all kinds
of offices, compatible and incompatible, secular and regular,
etiam tria curata" ; and his nephew and successor, Jean
de Hangest, was elected bishop at nineteen years of age.
Odet de Chatillon, brother of the famous Coligny, was
created cardinal in his sixteenth year. Pope Leo X. re
ceived the tonsure as a boy of seven, was made archbishop in
his eighth, and cardinal-deacon in his thirteenth year (with
the reservation that he should not put on the insignia of his
dignity nor discharge the duties of his office till he was
sixteen), besides being canon in three cathedrals, rector in
six parishes, prior in three convents, abbot in thirteen addi
tional abbeys, and bishop of Amalfi, deriving revenues from
them all !

Calvin resigned the chaplaincy in favor of his younger
brother, April 30, 1529. He exchanged the charge of S.
Martin for that of the village Pont-1'Eveque (the birthplace
of his father), July 5, 1529, but he resigned it, May 4, 1534,
before he left France. In the latter parish he preached
sometimes, but never administered the sacraments, not being
ordained to the priesthood.1

The income from the chaplaincy enabled him to prosecute
his studies at Paris, together with his noble companions.
He entered the College de la Marche in August, 1523, in
his fourteenth year.2 He studied grammar and rhetoric with

1 Beza says : " Quo loco [Pons Episcopi~\ constat Calvinum, antequam Gallia
excederet, nul/is alioqui pontificiis ordinibus (unquarn) initiation, aliquot ad popu-
lum cfmciones habuisse." Op. XXI. 121. " Unquam " is omitted in the text, but
added in the notes. The French biography of Colladon reads: "En laquelle
cure il a depuis presche par fois, avans qu'il se retirast de France." Ibid. 54.

2 This is the date given by Kampschulte (I. 223), Lefranc (p. 14), and
others. According to Opera, XXI. 189, Calvin was " Corderii discipulus in
Collegia de la Marche Lutetian," in the year 1529 ; but in that year he was a
student of the university. There is some confusion in the dates referring to
the period of his studies in Paris.

302 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

an experienced and famous teacher, Marthurin Cordier (Cor-
datus). He learned from him to think and to write Latin,
and dedicated to him in grateful memory his Commentary
on the First Epistle to the Thessalonians (1550). Cordier
became afterwards a Protestant and director of the College
of Geneva, where he died at the age of eighty-five in the
same year with Calvin (1564) .*

From the College de la Marche Calvin was transferred to
the strictly ecclesiastical College de Montague, in which
philosophy and theology were taught under the direction of
a learned Spaniard. In February, 1528, Ignatius Loyola, the
founder of the order of the Jesuits, entered the same college
and studied under the same teacher. The leaders of the two
opposite currents in the religious movement of the sixteenth
century came very near living under the same roof and sitting
at the same table.

Calvin showed during this early period already the promi
nent traits of his character : he was conscientious, studious,
silent, retired, animated by a strict sense of duty, and exceed
ingly religious.2 An uncertain tradition says that his fellow-
students called him "the Accusative," on account of . his
censoriousness.3

NOTES. SLANDEROUS REPORTS ON CALVIN'S YOUTH.

Thirteen years after Calvin's death, Bolsec, his bitter enemy, once a
Romanist, then a Protestant, then a Romanist again, wrote a calumnious

1 Cordier was called " linguae, morum vitceque magister." He was the Rollin
of the sixteenth century. He wrote Rudimenta grammatical; le miroir de la
jeunesse ; commentarius puerorum, etc. See Lefranc, p. 62, and "Bulletin de
la Soc. de 1'hist. du Protest, fra^ais," XVII. 449.

2 Beza-Colladon (XXI. 54) : " Quant a ses mceurs, il estoit sur tout fort con-
sciencieiiXj ennemi des vices, et fort adonne au service de Dieu qu'on appeloit pour
lors : tellement que son cceur tendoit entierement a la Theologie, et son pere preten-
doit de Vy faire employer." In the Latin Vita, Beza says that he was " tenera
cetate mirum in modum religiosus." With this agrees the testimony of the
Roman Catholic, Florimond de Ramond, previously quoted, p. 273.

3 Le Vasseur, p. 1158. Beza gives some probability to this report by the
notice that Calvin was "severus omnium in suis sodalibus censor."

§ 69. CALVIN'S YOUTH AND TRAINING. 303

history of his life (Histoire de la vie, moeurs, actes, doctrine, Constance, et mart de
Jean Calvin, Lyon, 1577, republished by Louis-Francis Chastel, Magistral,
Lyon, 1875, pp. 323, with an introduction of xxxi. pp.). He represents Calvin
as "a man, above all others who lived in the world, ambitious, impudent,
arrogant, cruel, malicious, vindictive, and ignorant" (!) (p. 12).

Among other incredible stories he reports that Calvin in his youth was
stigmatized (fleur-de-lyse', branded with the national flower of France) at
Noyon in punishment of a heinous crime, and then fled from France in
disgrace. " Calvin," he says (p. 28 sq.), "pourveu d'une cure et d'une chapelle,
fat surprins ou (eC) convaincu du peche de Sodomie, pour lequel il fut en danger de
mort par Jen, comment est la commune peine de tel peche~ : mais que I'Evesque de
laditte ville [Noyon] par compassion feit moderer laditte peine en une marque de
fleur de lys chaude sur I'espaule. Iceluy Calvin confuz de telle vergongne et vitupere,
se defit de ses deux be'nefices es m.ains du cure' de Noyon, duquel ayant receu quelque
somme d'argent s'en alia vers Allemaigne et Itallie : cherchant son adventure, et passa
par la ville de Ferrare, ou il recent quelque aurnone de Madame la Duchesse."
Bolsec gives as his authority a Mr. Bertelier, secretary of the Council of
Geneva, who, he says, was sent to Noyon to make inquiries about the early
life of Calvin, and saw the document of his disgrace. But nobody else has
seen such a document, and if it had existed at all, it would have been used
against him by his enemies. The story is contradicted by all that is authen
tically known of Calvin, and has been abundantly refuted by Drelincourt, and
recently again by Lefranc (p. 48 sqq., 176-182). Kampschulte (I. 224, note 2)
declares it unworthy of serious refutation. Nevertheless it has been often
repeated by Roman controversialists down to Audin.

The story is either a malignant slander, or it arose from confounding the
Reformer with a younger person of the same name (Jean Cauvin~), and chaplain
of the same church at Noyon, who it appears was punished for some immorality
of a different kind ("pour avoir retenue en sa maison une femme du mauvais gou-
vernement ") in the year 1550, that is, about twenty years later, and who was
no heretic, but died a " bon Catholic " (as Le Vasseur reports in Annales de
Noyon, p. 1170, quoted by Lefranc, p. 182). B. C. Galiffe, who is unfriendly
to Calvin, adopts the latter suggestion (Quelques pages d'histoire exacte, p. 118).

Several other myths were circulated about the Reformer ; e.g., that he was
the son of a concubine of a priest; that he was an intemperate eater; that he
stole a silver goblet at Orleans, etc. See Lefranc, pp. 52 sqq.

Similar perversions and inventions attach to many a great name. The
Sanhedrin who crucified the Lord circulated the story that the disciples stole
his body and cheated the world. The heretical Ebionites derived the conver
sion of Paul from disappointed ambition and revenge for an alleged offence
of the high-priest, who had refused to give him his daughter in marriage.
The long-forgotten myth of Luther's suicide has been seriously revived in
our own age (1890) by Roman Catholic priests (Majunke and Honef) in the
interest of revived Ultramontanism, and is believed by thousands in spite of
repeated refutation.

304 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

§ 70. Calvin as a Student in the French Universities.
A.D. 1528-1533.

The letters of CALVIN from 1530 to 1532, chiefly addressed to his fellow-
student, Fra^ois Daniel of Orleans, edited by JULES BONNET, in the
Edinburgh ed. of CALVIN'S Letters, I. 3 sqq. ; HERMINJARD, II. 278 sqq. ;
Opera, X. Part II. 3 sqq. His first letter to Daniel is dated " Melliani,
8 Idus Septembr.," and is put by Herminjard and Reuss in the year 1530
(not 1529). Mellianum is Meillant, south of Bourges (and not to be con
founded with Meaux, as is done in the Edinburgh edition).

Comp. BEZA-COLLADOX, in Op. XXL 54 sqq., 121 sqq. L. BONNET: Etudes
sur Calvin, in the " Revue Chretienne" for 1855. — KAMPSCHULTE, I. 226-
240 ; M'CRiE, 12-28 ; LEFRANC, 72-108.

Calvin received the best education — in the humanities,
law, philosophy, and theology — which France at that time
could give. He studied successively in the three leading
universities of Orleans, Bourges, and Paris, from 1528 to
1533, first for the priesthood, then, at the wish of his father,
for the legal profession, which promised a more prosperous
career. After his father's death, he turned again with double
zeal to the study of the humanities, and at last to theology.

He made such progress in learning that he occasionally
supplied the place of the professors. He was considered a
doctor rather than an auditor.1 Years afterwards, the mem
ory of his prolonged night studies survived in Orleans and
Bourges. By his excessive industry he stored his memory
with valuable information, but undermined his health, and
became a victim to headache, dyspepsia, and insomnia, of
which he suffered more or less during his subsequent life.2

While he avoided the noisy excitements and dissipations
of student life, he devoted his leisure to the duties and

1 " Doctor potius quam auditor," says Beza, who studied in the same univer
sities a few years later, and lodged at Orleans in the house or pension of
Duchemin, a friend of Calvin.

2 Beza (XXI. 122) : " Quibus continuatis vigiliis ille quidem solidarn ernditio-
nem et excellentissiman memoriam est consequutus, sed etiam vicissim, ut verisimile
estyVentriculi imbecillitatem contraxit,quce varios ipsi morbos et tandem etiam intern'
pestivam mortem attulit."

§ 70. CALVIN AS A STUDENT. 305

enjoyments of friendship with like-minded fellow-students.
Among them were three young lawyers, Duchemin, Connan,
and Frangois Daniel, who felt the need of a reformation
and favored progress, but remained in the old Church. His
letters from that period are brief and terse ; they reveal a
love of order and punctuality, and a conscientious regard
for little as well as great things, but not a trace of opposition
to the traditional faith.

His principal teacher in Greek and Hebrew was Melchior
Volmar (Wolmar), a German humanist of Rottweil, a pupil
of Lefevre, and successively professor in the universities of
Orleans and Bourges, and, at last, at Tubingen, where he
died in 1561. He openly sympathized with the Lutheran
Reformation, and may have exerted some influence upon his
pupil in this direction, but we have no authentic information
about it.1 Calvin was very intimate with him, and could
hardly avoid discussing with him the religious question
which was then shaking all Europe. In grateful remem
brance of his services he dedicated to him his Commen
tary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Aug. 1,
1546).2

His teachers in law were the two greatest jurists of the
age, Pierre d'Estoile (Petrus Stella) at Orleans, who was
conservative, and became President of the Parliament of
Paris, and Andrea Alciati at Bourges, a native of Milan,
who was progressive and continued his academic career in
Bologna and Padua. Calvin took an interest in the con
troversy of these rivals, and wrote a little preface to the

1 Florimond de Raemond (who shows a tendency to discredit the French
Reformation by tracing it to a foreign, German source) asserts that Volmar
first instilled the poison of heresy into the mind of Calvin, and advised him
to exchange the Code of Justinian for the Gospel of Christ. But Calvin and
Beza (Op. XXI. 122), while speaking highly of Volmar as a teacher and
friend, say nothing about his religious influence.

2 Opera, XII. no. 814. He apologizes for his long silence. The corre
spondence with Volmar is lost, but may yet be found.

306 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Antapologia of his friend, Nicholas Duchemin, in favor of
d'Estoile.1 He acquired the degree of Licentiate or Bachelor
of Laws at Orleans, Feb. 14, 1531 (1532) .2 On leaving the
university he was offered the degree of Doctor of Laws
without the usual fees, by the unanimous consent of the
professors.3 He was consulted about the divorce question
of Henry VIII., when it was proposed to the universities
and scholars of the Continent; and he gave his opinion
against the lawfulness of marriage with a brother's widow.4

The study of jurisprudence sharpened his judgment, en
larged his knowledge of human nature, and was of great
practical benefit to him in the organization and administra
tion of the Church in Geneva, but may have also increased
his legalism and over-estimate of logical demonstration.

In the summer of 1531, after a visit to Noyon, where he
attended his father in his last sickness, Calvin removed a
second time to Paris, accompanied by his younger brother,
Antoine. He found there several of his fellow-students of
Orleans and Bourges ; one of them offered him the home
of his parents, but he declined, and took up his abode in the
College Fortet, where we find him again in 1533. A part of
the year he spent in Orleans.

Left master of his fortune, he now turned his attention
again chiefly to classical studies. He attended the lectures

1 March 6, 1531. Herminjard, II. 314 sq. no. 328; Lefranc, 79 sq.

2 In Op. XXI. 190, the degree is dated from the year 1532. "Dans un act
de se jour [Febr. 24~\ est nomme maistre Jean CAUVIN licencie' es lois." In a
document relating to the settlement of the estate of the deceased Gerard
Cauvin, which Lefranc (p. 202) quotes from Le Vasseur (Annal., p. 1169),
and assigns to Feb. 14, 1531, Calvin is mentioned as "licentie'es loix."

3 " Absque ullo precio, summo docentium omnium consensu," says Beza (Op.
XXL 122). Colladon (f. 54) adds that Calvin refused the offer ("ce que
toutesfois il refusa ") ; but it is not clear whether he meant the gratuity or the
degree itself, probably the former.

* Gerdes, IV. 201 ; M'Crie, 63 ; Dyer, Life of Calvin, p. 8. Burnet, in his
Hist, of the fief, of the Ch. of England (Part I. Bk. IL), refers to a letter of
Calvin on the subject, which I cannot find in Herminjard.

§ 70. CALVIN AS A STUDENT. 307

of Pierre Dane's, a Hellenist and encyclopaedic scholar of
great reputation.1

He showed as yet no trace of opposition to the Catholic
Church. His correspondence refers to matters of friendship
and business, but avoids religious questions. When Daniel
asked him to introduce his sister to the superior of a nun
nery in Paris which she wished to enter, he complied with
the request, and made no effort to change her purpose. He
only admonished her not to confide in her own strength, but
to put her whole trust in God. This shows, at least, that
he had lost faith in the meritoriousness of vows and good
works, and was approaching the heart of the evangelical
system.2

He associated much with a rich and worthy merchant,
Estienne de la Forge, who afterwards was burned for the
sake of the Gospel (1535).

He seems to have occasionally suffered in Paris of pecu
niary embarrassment. The income from his benefices was
irregular, and he had to pay for the printing of his first
book. At the close of 1531 he borrowed two crowns from
his friend, Duchemin. He expressed a hope soon to dis
charge his debt, but would none the less remain a debtor in
gratitude for the services of friendship.

It is worthy of remark that even those of his friends who
refused to follow him in his religious change, remained true
to him. This is an effective refutation of the charge of cold
ness so often made against him. Francois Daniel of Orleans
renewed the correspondence in 1559, and entrusted to him

1 Lefranc (p. 89) calls him "Tun des esprits les plus profonds et les plus
puissants de cette Renaissance qui compta tant de ge'nies universels," and quotes

the distich : —

" Magnus Budceus, major Danesius ille,
Argivos norat, iste etiam reliquos."

2 " Nolui earn deducere a sententia . . . sed paucis admonui, ne suis se viribus
ejferret, ne quid sibi de se temere promitteret, sed omnia reponeret in Dei virtute, in
quo sumus et vivimus." Hernrinjard, II. 347.

308 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

the education of his son Pierre, who afterwards became an
advocate and bailiff of Saint-Benoit near Orleans.1

§ 71. Calvin as a Humanist Commentary on Seneca.

" L. Annei Se | necce, Romani Senato | ris, ac philosophi clarissi \ mi, libri duo de
Clementia, ad Ne \ ronem Ccesarem: \ Joannis Caluini Nouioduncei commen-
tariis illustrati ... | Parisiis. . . . 1532." 4°. Reprinted 1576, 1597,
1612, and, from the ed. princeps, in Opera, vol. V. (1866) pp. 5-162. The
commentary is preceded by a dedicatory epistle, a sketch of the life of
Seneca.

H. LECOULTRE : Calvin d'apres son commentaire sur le " De Clementia " de
Seneque (1532). Lausanne, 1891 (pp. 29).

In April, 1532, Calvin, in his twenty-third year, ventured
before the public with his first work, which was printed at
his own expense, and gave ample proof of his literary taste
and culture. It is a commentary on Seneca's book On
Mercy. He announced its appearance to Daniel with the
words, " Tandem jacta est alea." He sent a copy to Erasmus,
who had published the works of Seneca in 1515 and 1529.
He calls him "the honor and delight of the world of let
ters."2 It is dedicated to Claude de Hangest, his former
schoolmate of the Mommor family, at that time abbot of
St. Eloy (Eligius) at Noyon.

This book moves in the circle of classical philology and
moral philosophy, and reveals a characteristic love for the
best type of Stoicism, great familiarity with Greek and
Roman literature,3 masterly Latinity, rare exegetical skill,

1 See the last three letters of Calvin to Daniel (1559 and 1560) in Opera,
vol. XVII. 584, 680, and XVIII. 16. Lefranc says (p. 77) : " Rien de touchant
comme cette correspondance oil le grave re'formateur montre tine indulgence et line
souriante bonhomie qui ne lui sont pas habituelles, . . . Cet e'change de lettres
revele veritablement un Calvin affectueux et de'licat qu'on a trop souvent me'connu,
sur la foi des Bolsec et des And in." There is a German monograph on Pierre
Daniel d' Orleans by Hagen of Bern, translated into French by Paul de Felice,
Orleans, 1876.

2 <( Litter arum alterum decus ac primce delicia'." In his dedicatory letter to
Claude de Hangest, April 4, 1532, which is also printed in Herminjard, II. p. 411.

3 He freely quotes Aristotle, Plutarch, Virgil, Livy, Ovid, Horace, Pliny,

§ 72. CALVIN'S CONVERSION. 309

clear and sound judgment, and a keen insight into the evils
of despotism and the defects of the courts of justice, but
makes no allusion to Christianity. It is remarkable that
his first book was a commentary on a moral philosopher who
came nearer to the apostle Paul than any heathen writer.

It is purely the work of a humanist, not of an apologist
or a reformer. There is no evidence that it was intended to
be an indirect plea for toleration and clemency in behalf of
the persecuted Protestants. It is not addressed to the king
of France, and the implied comparison of Francis with Nero
in the incidental reference to the Neronian persecution would
have defeated such a purpose.1

Calvin, like Melanchthon and Zwingli, started as a hu
manist, and, like them, made the linguistic and literary
culture of the Renaissance tributary to the Reformation.
They all admired Erasmus until he opposed the Reformation,
for which he had done so much to prepare the way. They
went boldly forward, when he timidly retreated. They loved
religion more than letters. They admired the heathen classics,
but they followed the apostles and evangelists as guides to
the higher wisdom of God.

§ 72. Calvin's Conversion. 1532.

Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms (Opera, XXXI. 21, 22, Latin and
French in parallel columns), and his Reply to Sadolet (Opera, V. 389).
See above, p. 296.

HENRY, I. ch. II. STAHELIN, I. 16-28. KAMPSCHULTE, I. 230. LEFRANC, 96 sqq.

A brilliant career — as a humanist, or a lawyer, or a church
man — opened before Calvin, when he suddenly embraced the

Quintilian, Curtius, Macrobius, Terence, Diogenes Laertius, and especially
his favorite Cicero, whom he was for some time in the habit of reading
through once a year. Lecoultre gives in an appendix a list of the works
quoted by Calvin. He thinks that he was already then at heart a Protestant.
1 " Qnum Nero din's suppliciis impotenter swviret in Christianas." Op. V. 10.
Henry, Herzog, Dorner, and Guizot assume an apologetic aim ; while Stahelin
and Kampschulte deny it.

310 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

cause of the Reformation, and cast in his lot with a poor
persecuted sect.

Reformation was in the air. The educated classes could
not escape its influence. The seed sown by Lefevre had
sprung up in France. The influence from Germany and
Switzerland made itself felt more and more. The clergy
opposed the new opinions, the men of letters favored them.
Even the court was divided : King Francis I. persecuted the
Protestants; his sister, Marguerite d'Angouleme, queen of
Navarre, protected them. How could a young scholar of
such precocious mind and intense studiousness as Calvin
be indifferent to the religious question which agitated the
universities of Orleans, Bourges, and Paris ? He must have
searched the Scriptures long and carefully before he could
acquire such familiarity as he shows already in his first
theological writings.

He speaks of his conversion as a sudden one (subita con-
versio), but this does not exclude previous preparation any
more than in the case of Paul.1 A city may be taken by a
single assault, yet after a long siege. Calvin was not an
unbeliever, nor an immoral youth ; on the contrary, he was a
devout Catholic of unblemished character. His conversion,
therefore, was a change from Romanism to Protestantism,
from papal superstition to evangelical faith, from scholastic
traditionalism to biblical simplicity. He mentions no human
agency, not even Volmar or Olive tan or Lefevre. " God
himself," he says, " produced the change. He instantly sub
dued my heart to obedience." Absolute obedience of his
intellect to the word of God, and obedience of his will to the
will of God: this was the soul of his religion. He strove in
vain to attain peace of conscience by the mechanical methods

1 " Quum superstition/ bus papatus magis pertinaciter addictus essem, quam Jit
facile esset e tarn profundo luto me extrahi, animum meum, qui pro cetate nimis
obduruerat, subita conversione (par line conversion subtle} ad docilitaiem subegit."
Opera, XXXI. 21. Lefranc (p. 40) weakens the sense of this decisive passage.

§ 72. CALVIN'S CONVERSION. 311

of Romanism, and was driven to a deeper sense of sin and
guilt. uOnly one haven of salvation," he says, "is left open
for our souls, and that is the mercy of God in Christ. We
are saved by grace — not by our merits, not by our works."
Reverence for the Church kept him back for some time till
he learned to distinguish the true, invisible, divine essence of
the Church from its outward, human form and organization.
Then the knowledge of the truth, like a bright light from
heaven, burst upon his mind with such force, that there was
nothing left for him but to obey the voice from heaven. He
consulted not with flesh and blood, and burned the bridge
behind him.

The precise time and place and circumstances of this great
change are not accurately known. He was very reticent
about himself. It probably occurred at Orleans or Paris in
the latter part of the year 1532.1 In a letter of October,
1533, to Francis Daniel, he first speaks of the Reformation
in Paris, the rage of the Sorbonne, and the satirical comedy
against the queen of Navarre.2 In November of the same
year he publicly attacked the Sorbonne. In a familiar letter
to Bucer in Strassburg, which is dated from Noyon, Sept. 4
(probably in 1534), he recommends a French refugee, falsely
accused of holding the opinions of the Anabaptists, and says,
" I entreat of you, master Bucer, if my prayers, if my tears
are of any avail, that you would compassionate and help him
in his wretchedness. The poor are left in a special manner
to your care ; you are the helper of the orphan. . . . Most
learned Sir, farewell ; thine from my heart." 3

1 So Kampschulte (I. 242), Lefranc (p. 98, "dans la seconde moitie de
Vanne'e 1532"), and, apparently, also the Strassburg editors, vol. XXI. 191.
Beza seems to date the conversion further back (to 1528 or 1527) and traces
it to the influence of Olivetan, and so also Henry and Merle d'Aubigne' (I. 535).
Stahelin (I. 21) puts it forward to the beginning of 1533. Calvin spent the
greater part of the year 1532 to 1533 at Orleans. Op. XXI. 191.

2 Ep. 19 in Op. X. Part II. 27. Bonnet, I. 12. Herminjard, III. 106
Lefranc, 109 sqq.

3 " Tuus ex animo." Op. X. Part II. 24. Bonnet, Letters, I. 9-11. Hermin-

312 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

There never was a change of conviction purer in motive,
more radical in character, more fruitful and permanent in
result. It bears a striking resemblance to that still greater
event near Damascus, which transformed a fanatical Pharisee
into an apostle of Jesus Christ. And, indeed, Calvin was
not unlike St. Paul in his intellectual and moral constitu
tion; and the apostle of sovereign grace and evangelical
freedom had not a more sympathetic expounder than Luther
and Calvin.1

Without any intention or effort on his part, Calvin became
the head of the evangelical party in less than a year after
his conversion. Seekers of the truth came to him from all
directions. He tried in vain to escape them. Every quiet
retreat was turned into a school. He comforted and strength
ened the timid brethren in their secret meetings of devotion.
He avoided all show of learning, but, as the old Chronicle of
the French Reformed Church reports, he showed such depth
of knowledge and such earnestness of speech that no one
could hear him without being forcibly impressed. He usually
began and closed his exhortations with the word of Paul,
"If God is for us, who can be against us?" This is the
keynote of his theology and piety.

He remained for the present in the Catholic Church. His
aim was to reform it from within rather than from without,
until circumstances compelled him to leave.

jard, III. 201, locates this letter in 1534, which is more likely than 1532. The
letter presupposes a previous acquaintance with Bucer. This might be dated
back Avith Kampschulte (I. 231) to the year 1528, if Calvin were that un
named " Noviodunensis juvenis " whom Bucer, in a letter to Farel, dated May 1,
1528, mentions as having fled from persecution at Orleans to Strassburg to
study Greek and Hebrew ; but Bucer probably referred to Pierre Robert
Olivetan, who was likewise from Noyon, and a relative and friend of Calvin,
and perhaps brought Calvin into contact with Bucer. Herminjard, II. 132
(note 5), conjectures that the young man was Froment. But Froment was a
native of Dauphine, not of Noyon. Comp. Op. X. Part II. 1 ; XXI. 191.

1 Audin, following in the track of Bolsec, traces Calvin's conversion to
wounded ambition, and thereby exposes, as Kampschulte justly observes
(I. 242), his utter ignorance and misconception of Calvin's character, whose
only ambition was to serve God.

§ 73. CALVIN'S CALL. 313

§ 73. Calvin's Call.

As in the case of Paul, Calvin's call to his life-work coin
cided with his conversion, and he proved it by his labors.
" By their fruits ye shall know them."

We must distinguish between an ordinary and an extraor
dinary call, or the call to the ministry of the gospel, and the
call to reform the Church. The ordinary ministry is neces
sary for the being, the extraordinary for the well-being, of
the Church. The former corresponds to the priesthood in
the Jewish dispensation, and continues in unbroken succes
sion ; the latter resembles the mission of the prophets, and
appears sporadically in great emergencies. The office of a
reformer comes nearest the office of an apostle. There are
founders of the Church universal, as Peter and Paul; so
there are founders of particular churches, as Luther, Zwingli,
Calvin, Knox, Zinzendorf, Wesley; but none of the Reform
ers was infallible.

1. All the Reformers were born, baptized, confirmed, and
educated in the historic Catholic Church, which cast them
out; as the Apostles were circumcised and trained in the
Synagogue, which cast them out. They never doubted the
validity of the Catholic ordinances, and rejected the idea of
re-baptism. Distinguishing between the divine substance and
the human addition, Calvin said of his baptism, " I renounce
the chrism, but retain the baptism." l

The Reformers were also ordained priests in the Roman
Church, except Melanchthon and Calvin, — the greatest theo
logians among them. A remarkable exception. Melanchthon
remained a layman all his life ; yet his authority to teach is
undoubted. Calvin became a regular minister ; but how ?

He was, as we have seen, intended and educated for the
Roman priesthood, and early received the clerical tonsure 2

1 " Je renonce le cresme, et retient mon Hctptesme." Collation, in Op. XXI. 53.

2 The value of the tonsure was differently estimated, but it was generally

314 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

He also held two benefices, and preached sometimes in Pont
1'Eveque, and also in Lignieres, a little town near Bourges,
where he made the impression that " he preached better than
the monks." 1

But he never read mass, and never entered the higher
orders, properly so called.

After he left the Roman Church, there was no Evangelical
bishop in France to ordain him ; the bishops, so far, all re
mained in the old Church, except two or three in East Prussia
and Sweden. If the validity of the Christian ministry de
pended on an unbroken succession of diocesan bishops, which
again depends on historical proof, it would be difficult to
defend the Reformation and to resist the claims of Rome.
But the Reformers planted themselves on the promise of
Christ, the ever-present head of the Church, who is equally
near to his people in any age. They rejected the Roman
Catholic idea of ordination as a divinely instituted sacra
ment, which can only be performed by bishops, and which
confers priestly powers of offering sacrifice and dispensing
absolution. They taught the general priesthood of believ
ers, and fell back upon the internal call of the Holy Spirit
and the external call of the Christian people. Luther, in
his earlier writings, lodged the power of the keys in the con-
excluded from the lower orders. Calvin says (fnst. IV. eh. 19, § 22) : "Some
represent the clerical tonsure to be the first order of all, and episcopacy the
last; others exclude the tonsure, and place the archiepiscopal office among
the orders." Peter the Lombard distinguishes seven orders, corresponding to
the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (Isa. 11 : 2, 3), — beadles, readers, exorcists,
acolytes, subdeacons, deacons, priests. He regards the episcopate, not as a
separate ordo, but only as a dignity with four grades, — patriarch, archbishop,
metropolitan, bishop. Several schoolmen and canonists reckon eight or nine
ordines, including bishops and archbishops. The Council of Trent defined the
three ordines majores, — bishops, priests (presbyters), and deacons.

1 Colladon, Op. XXI. 55: " II prescha (while he studied at Bourges) quelque-
fois en une petite ville du pays de Berry, nominee Lignieres, et eut entree en la maison
du seigneur du lieu qui estoit pour lors : lequel . . . disait . . . qu'il lui semblait que
M. Jean Calvin preshoit mieux que les moines." His preaching at Pont 1'Eveque
is mentioned by Colladon, ibid. fol. 54, and by Beza, fol. 121. See above, p. 301.

§ 73. CALVIN'S CALL. 315

gregation, and identified ordination with vocation. "Who
ever is called," he says, " is ordained, and must preach : this
is our Lord's consecration and true chrism." He even con
secrated, by a bold irregularity, his friend Amsdorf as super
intendent of Naumburg, to show that he could make a bishop
as well as the pope, and could do it without the use of con
secrated oil.

Calvin was regularly elected pastor and teacher of theol
ogy at Geneva in 1536 by the presbyters and the council,
with the consent of the whole people.1

This popular election was a revival of the primitive cus
tom. The greatest bishops of the early Church — such as
Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustin — were elected by the voice
of the people, which they obeyed as the voice of God.

We are not informed whether Calvin was solemnly intro
duced into his office by prayer and the laying on of the
hands of presbyters (such as Farel and Viret), after the
apostolic custom (1 Tim. 4 : 14), which is observed in the
Reformed Churches. He did not regard ordination as abso
lutely indispensable, but as a venerable rite sanctioned by
the practice of the Apostles which has the force of a pre
cept.2 He even ascribed to it a semi-sacramental character.
" The imposition of hands," he says, " which is used at the
introduction of the true presbyters and ministers of the
Church into their office, I have no objection to consider as a
sacrament; for, in the first place, that sacrament is taken
from the Scripture, and, in the next place, it is declared by
Paul to be not unnecessary or useless, but a faithful symbol
of spiritual grace (1 Tim. 4: 14). I have not enumerated it
as a third among the sacraments, because it is not ordinary

1 Beza, Vita C. (XXI. 125 sq.) : " Snffragiis presbyterii et magistrates, acce-
dente plebis consensu, delectus non concionator tantum (hoc autem primum recuse-
rat}, sed etiam sacrarum literarum doctor, quod unum admittebat, est designatus
anno Domini MDXXXVI mense Augusto." Comp. Colladon, ibid. fol. 58 sq. :
"declare Pasteur et Docteur en ceste Eglise \de Geneve] avec legitime election et
approbation." * Inst. IV. ch. III. § 16.

316 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

or common to all the faithful, but a special rite for a parties
lar office. The ascription of this honor to the Christian
ministry, however, furnishes no reason of pride in Roman
priests ; for Christ has commanded the ordination of minis
ters to dispense his Gospel and his mysteries, not the inaugu
ration of priests to offer sacrifices. He has commissioned
them to preach the Gospel and to feed his flock, and not to
immolate victims." l

The evangelical ministry in the non-episcopal Churches
was of necessity presbyterial, that is, descended from the
presbyterate, which was originally identical with the episco
pate. Even the Church of England, during her formative
period under the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth, recog
nized the validity of presbyterial ordination, not only in the
Lutheran and Reformed Churches of the Continent, but
within her own jurisdiction, as in the cases of Peter Martyr,
professor of theology at Oxford ; Bucer, Fagius, and Cart-
wright, professors at Cambridge ; John a Lasco, pastor in
London ; Dean Whittingham of Durham, and many others.2

2. But whence did Calvin and the other Reformers derive
their authority to reform the old Catholic Church and to
found new Churches ? Here we must resort to a special
divine call and outfit. The Reformers belong not to the
regular order of priests, but to the irregular order of proph
ets whom God calls directly by his Spirit from the plough
or the shepherd's staff or the workshop or the study. So he
raises and endows men with rare genius for poetry or art or
science or invention or discovery. All good gifts come from
God ; but the gift of genius is exceptional, and cannot be
derived or propagated by ordinary descent. There are divine
irregularities as well as divine regularities. God writes on a

1 Institutes, IV. ch. XIX. § 28. (In Tholuck's ed. II. 470.)

2 Keble says in his Introduction to Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity : "Nearly
up to the time when Hooker wrote (1504), numbers had been admitted to the
ministry of the Church of England with no better than presbyterial ordination."

§ 74. THE OPEN RUPTURE. 317

crooked as well as on a straight line. Even Paul was called
out of due time, and did not seek ordination from Peter or any
other apostle, but derived his authority directly from Christ,
and proved his ministry by the abundance of his labors.

In the apostolic age there were apostles, prophets, and
evangelists for the Church at large, and presbyter-bishops
and deacons for particular congregations. The former are
considered extraordinary officers. But their race is not yet
extinct, any more than the race of men of genius in any other
sphere of life. They arise whenever and wherever they are
needed.

We are bound to the ordinary means of grace, but God
is free, and his Spirit works when, where, and how he
pleases. God calls ordinary men for ordinary work in the
ordinary way ; and he calls extraordinary men for extraordi
nary work in an extraordinary way. He has done so in times
past, and will do so to the end of time.1

Hooker, the most " judicious " of Anglican divines, says :
" Though thousands were debtors to Calvin, as touching
divine knowledge, yet he was to none, only to God."

§ 74. The Open Rupture. An Academic Oration. 1533.

CALV. Opera, X. P. I. 30; XXI. 123, 129, 102. A very graphic account by
Merle d'Aubigne, Bk. II. ch. xxx. (vol. II. 264-284).

For a little while matters seemed to take a favorable turn
at the court for reform. The reactionary conduct of the
Sorbonne and the insult offered to Queen Marguerite by the
condemnation of her "Mirror of a Sinful Soul,"- — a tender
and monotonous mystic reverie,2 — offended her brother and

1 Our own age is witness to this fact. I may refer to Dwight Lyman
Moody, who is a plain, unordained layman, but a genuine, God-taught evan
gelist. He lias probably converted more people to a Christian life than any
clergyman or learned professor of theology of this age, and has made his home
at Northfielcl a Jerusalem for Bible students from all parts of the country,
and even from across the sea.

2 Le iniroir de I'dme pe'cheresse (1533). The book was condemned on purely

318 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

the liberal members of the University. Several preachers
who sympathized with a moderate reformation, Gerard Rous-
sel, and the Augustinians, Bertault and Courault, were per
mitted to ascend the pulpit in Paris.1 The king himself, by
his opposition to the German emperor, and his friendship with
Henry VIII., incurred the suspicion of aiding the cause of
heresy and schism. He tried, from political motives and
regard for his sister, to conciliate between the conservative
and progressive parties. He even authorized the invitation
of Melanchthon to Paris as counsellor, but Melanchthon
wisely declined.

Nicolas Cop, the son of a distinguished royal physician
(William Cop of Basel), and a friend of Calvin, was elected
Rector of the University, Oct. 10, 1533, and delivered the
usual inaugural oration on All Saint's Day, Nov. 1, before a
large assembly in the Church of the Mathurins.2

This oration, at the request of the new Rector, had been
prepared by Calvin. It was a plea for a reformation on the
basis of the New Testament, and a bold attack on the schol
astic theologians of the day, who were represented as a set of
sophists, ignorant of the Gospel. " They teach nothing,"
says Calvin, " of faith, nothing of the love of God, nothing of
the remission of sins, nothing of grace, nothing of justifica
tion ; or if they do so, they pervert and undermine it all by
their laws and sophistries. I beg you, who are here present,
not to tolerate any longer these heresies and abuses." 3

negative evidence. The silence about purgatory and the intercession of saints
was construed as a denial.

1 Elie Courault (Coraud, Couraud, Coraldus) afterwards fled to Basel in
1534, and became a colleague of Farel and Calvin at Geneva in 1536. See
Herminjard, IV. 114, note 9.

2 Bulaeus, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, VI. 238, and in the " Catalogus
illustrium Academicorum Univ. Parisiensis " at the end of the same volume. A
notice of Cop in Herminjard, III. 129 sq. note 3.

3 The incomplete draft of this address has been discovered by J. Bonnet
among the MSS. of the Geneva Library, and the whole of it by Reuss and
Cunitz in the library of St. Thomas in Strassburg. It is printed in Opera,

§ 75. PERSECUTION OF THE PROTESTANTS IN PARIS. 319

The Sorbonne and the Parliament regarded this academic
oration as a manifesto of war upon the Catholic Church, and
condemned it to the flames. Cop was warned and fled to his
relatives in Basel.1 Calvin, the real author of the mischief,
is said to have descended from a window by means of sheets,
and escaped from Paris in the garb of a vine-dresser with a
hoe upon his shoulder. His rooms were searched and his
books and papers were seized by the police.2

§ 75. Persecution of the Protestants in Paris. 1534.

BEZA in Vita Calv., vol. XXI. 124. — JEAN CRESPIN: Livre des Martyrs, Geneve,
1570. — The report of the Bourgeois de Paris. — GERDESIUS, IV. Mon. 11. —
HENRY, I. 74; II. 333. — DYER, I. 29. — POLENZ, I. 282. — KAMPSCHULTE,
1.243. — "Bulletin de la Soc. de 1'hist. du Prot. fran?.," X. 34; XI. 253.

This storm might have blown over without doing much
harm. But in the following year the reaction was greatly
strengthened by the famous placards, which gave it the name
of " the year of placards." An over-zealous, fanatical Protes
tant by the name of Feret, a servant of the king's apothecary,
placarded a tract " on the horrible, great, intolerable abuses
of the popish mass," throughout Paris and even at the door
of the royal chamber at Fontainebleau, where the king was
then residing, in the night of Oct. 18, 1534. In this placard
the mass is described as a blasphemous denial of the one and
all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ ; while the pope, with all his
brood (toute sa vermine) of cardinals, bishops, priests, and

X. Pars II. 30-36 (and the shorter draft, IX. 873-876). Comp. Herminjard,
III. 117, note, and 418 sqq.

1 Three hundred crowns were offered for his capture dead or alive. So
Bucer wrote to Blaurer, Jan. 13, 1534, in Herminjard, III. 130. Cop informed
Bucer, April 5, 1534, that a German was burned in Paris, for denying transub-
stantiation. Ibid. III. 159.

2 According to Beza (XXI. 123), Queen Marguerite protected Calvin and
honorably received him at the court'; but he certainly left Paris very soon.
Colladon says nothing of an interference of Marguerite. The story of the
escape of Calvin is told by Papyrius Masson, and Desmay. See M'Crie, p.
100, note 59. It has been compared to Paul's escape at Damascus, Acts 9:25.

320 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

monks, are denounced as hypocrites and servants of Anti
christ.1

All moderate Protestants deplored this untimely outburst
of radicalism. It retarded and almost ruined the prospects
of the Reformation in France. The best cause may be
undone by being overdone.

The king was highly and justly incensed, and ordered the
imprisonment of all suspected persons. The prisons were
soon filled. To purge the city from the defilement caused by
this insult to the holy mass and the hierarchy, a most impos
ing procession was held from the Louvre to Notre Dame, on
Jan. 29, 1535. The image of St. Genevi£ve, the patroness of
Paris, was carried through the streets : the archbishop, with
the host under a magnificent dais, and the king with his three
sons, bare-headed, on foot, a burning taper in their hands,
headed the procession, and were followed by the princes, car
dinals, bishops, priests, ambassadors, and the great officers
of the State and of the University, walking two and two
abreast, in profound silence, with lighted torches. Solemn
mass was performed in the cathedral. Then the king dined
with the prelates and dignitaries, and declared that he would
not hesitate to behead any one of his own children if found
guilty of these new, accursed heresies, and to offer them as a
sacrifice to divine justice.

The gorgeous solemnities of the day wound up with a hor
rible autodafe of six Protestants : they were suspended by a
rope to a machine, let down into burning flames, again drawn
up, and at last precipitated into the fire. They died like

1 They are indiscriminately called "faux prophetes, damnables trompeurs,
apostats, loups,faux pasteurs, menteurs, blasphe'mateurs, meurtriers des dmes, renon-
Cfiirs de Jesus Christ, ravisseurs de I'honneur de Dieu, et plus de'testables que les
diables." Farel, then in Switzerland, was suspected of having some share in
this incendiary publication, but without any evidence. Courault, who was
then in confinement, advised not to publish the paper, "as it would excite
great commotion in the minds of the people, and bring odium on the whole
body of the faithful." Hist. Martyr., fol. 64, quoted by M'Crie, p. 102.

§ 75. PERSECUTION OF THE PKOTESTANTS IN PARIS. 321

heroes. The more educated among them had their tongues
slit. Twenty-four innocent Protestants were burned alive in
public places of the city from Nov. 10, 1534, till May 5, 1535.
Among them was Etienne de la Forge (Stephanus Forge us),
an intimate friend of Calvin. Many more were fined, impris
oned, and tortured, and a considerable number, among them
Calvin and Du Tillet, fled to Strassburg.1

These cruelties were justified or excused by charges of
heresy, immorality, and disloyalty, and by a reference to the
excesses of a fanatical wing of the Anabaptists in Miinster,
which took place in the same year.2 But the Huguenots
were then, as their descendants have always been, and are
now, among the most intelligent, moral, and orderly citizens
of France.3

The Sorbonne'urged the king to put a stop to the printing-
press (Jan. 13, 1535). He agreed to a temporary suspension
(Feb. 26). Afterwards censors were appointed, first by Par
liament, then by the clergy (1542). The press stimulated
free thought and was stimulated by it in turn. Before 1500,
four millions of volumes (mostly in folio) were printed ; from
1500 to 1536, seventeen millions ; after that time the number

1 Beza (XXI. 124) gives a brief account of the persecution : " Eousgue
inflammata fascinati Francisci Regis ira ob schedas quasdam adversus missam per
urbem sparsas ipsiusque regii cubiculi foribus adjixas, ut publica decreta supplica-
tione, cui una cum liberis suis tribus nudo capite ardentem facem quasi expiationis
causa gestans interfuit, quatuor urbis celebrioribus locis octonos martyres vivos ustu-
lari juberet, atque adeo solemni jure jurando testaretur, se ne liberis quidem suis
parsurum, si forte teterrirnis illis, ut vocabat, hceresibus essent infecti." The Prot-
estant reports are verified by that of a Roman Catholic, " Bourgeois de Pan's,"
who witnessed the burnings with satisfaction, as a spectacle well pleasing to
God, and mentions the dates and places of execution (namely, Nov. 10, 1534,
Nov. 18, Nov. 19, Dec. 4 ; Jan. 21, 1535, Jan. 22, Feb. 16, 19, 26, March 3,
May 5), as well as the occupations of the victims, most of whom were work-
ingmen, one a rich merchant. This report was published in 1854 and is
reprinted in Michelet's Histoire de France (vol. X. 340 sq.).

2 "Pour excuser envers les princes protestants les persecutions qu'on faisait centre
I'Evangile." Colladon (XXI. 57).

3 Michelet (X. 339) says : " Rien de plus saint, de plus pur, que les origines du
protestantisme francais. Rien de plus eloigne' de la sanglante orgie de Munster,"

322 THE REFORMATION IX FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

is beyond calculation.1 The printing-press is as necessary for
liberty as respiration for health. Some air is good, some bad ;
but whether good or bad, it is the condition of life.

This persecution was the immediate occasion of Calvin's
Institutes, and the forerunner of a series of persecutions which
culminated under the reign of Louis XIV., and have made
the Reformed Church of France a Church of martyrs.

§ 76. Calvin as a Wandering Evangelist. 1533-1536.

For nearly three years Calvin wandered as a fugitive evan
gelist under assumed names 2 from place to place in Southern
France, Switzerland, Italy, till he reached Geneva as his final
destination. It is impossible accurately to determine all the
facts and dates in this period.

He resigned his ecclesiastical benefices at Noyon and Pont
1'Eveque, May 4, 1534, and thus closed all connection with
the Roman Church.3 That year was remarkable for the
founding of the order of the Jesuits at Montmartre (Aug.
15), which took the lead in the Counter-Reformation ; by the
election of Pope Paul III. (Alexander Farnese, Oct. 13),
who confirmed the order, excommunicated Heniy VIII., and
established the Inquisition in Italy ; and by the bloody perse
cution of the Protestants in Paris, which has been described
in the preceding section.4

The Roman Counter-Reformation now began in earnest,
and called for a consolidation of the Protestant forces.

Calvin spent the greater part of the year 1533 to 1534,
under the protection of Queen Marguerite of Navarre, in her

1 Michelet, I.e. 342 sq.

2 Such as Charles d'Espeville, Martianus Lucanius, Carolus Passelius,
Alcuin, Deper£an, Calpurnius. There is a monograph on these assumed
names, Diatribe de Pseudonymia Calvini, by Liebe, Amsterdam, 1723, which
includes several letters of importance. So says Kampschulte, I. 245.

3 Le Vasseur, 1161. Herminjard, V. 104. Op. XXI. 193.

4 Beza calls the year 1534 "horrenda in multos pios scevitia insignis" (Calv.
Op. XXI. 124).

§ 76. CALVIN AS A WANDERING EVANGELIST. 323

native city of Angouleme. This highly gifted lady (1492-
1549), the sister of King Francis L, grandmother of Henry
IV., and a voluminous writer in verse and prose, was a strange
mixture of piety and liberalism, of idealism and sensualism.
She patronized both the Reformation and the Renaissance,
Calvin and Rabelais ; she wrote the Mirror of a Sinful Soul,
and also the Heptameron in professed imitation of Boccaccio's
Decamerone ; yet she was pure, and began and closed the day
with religious meditation and devotion. After the death of
her royal brother (1547), she retired to a convent as abbess,
and declared on her death-bed that, after receiving extreme
unction, she had protected the Reformers out of pure com
passion, and not from any wish to depart from the faith of
her ancestors.1

Calvin lived at Angouleme with a wealthy friend, Louis du
Tillet, who was canon of the cathedral and cure of Claix, and
had acquired on his journeys a rare library of three or four
thousand volumes.2 He taught him Greek, and prosecuted
his theological studies. He associated with honorable men
of letters, and was highly esteemed by them.3 He began
there the preparation of his Institutes^ He also aided Olive-
tan in the revision and completion of the French translation
of the Bible, which appeared at Neuchatel in June, 1535,
with a preface of Calvin.5

1 Dyer {Life of Calvin, p. 18) says of her. "Plato's divine and earthly love
never met more conspicuously in a human being," and quotes the remark of M.
Genin, the editor of her correspondence : " Le trait saillant du caractere de Mar
guerite c'est d 'avoir allietoute sa vie les idees religieuses et les idees d'amour mondain."

2 Ep. 20, Op. X. Ft. I. 37. Florimond de Raemond (p. 883) extends Calvin's
sojourn at Angouleme to three years, which is evidently an error.

3 Florimond de Rsemond : " // estoit en bonne estime et reputation, aime" de tons
ceux qui aimoient les lettres."

4 According to the same Roman Catholic historian.

5 Ep. 29 in Op. X. Pars I. 51 ; the preface in vol. IX. 787-790. Beza (fol
lowed by Stahelin, I. 88) makes him take part also in the first edition, which
appeared in 1534, and contained only the New Testament But this seems to
be an error. See Reuss, "Revue de Theologie," 1866, No. III. 318, and Kamp-
schulte, I. 247 ; also Herminjard, III. 349, note 8.

324 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

From Angouleme Calvin made excursions to Nerac, Poi
tiers, Orleans, and Paris. At Nerac in Be*arn, the little capi
tal of Queen Marguerite, he became personally acquainted
with Le Fevre d'Etaples (Faber Stapulensis), the octogena
rian patriarch of French Humanism and Protestantism. Le
Fevre, with prophetic vision, recognized in the young scholar
the future restorer of the Church of France.1 Perhaps he
also suggested to him to take Melanchthon for his model.2
Roussel, the chaplain and confessor of Marguerite, advised
him to purify the house of God, but not to destroy it.

At Poitiers, Calvin gained several eminent persons for the
Reformation. According to an uncertain tradition he cele
brated with a few friends, for the first time, the Lord's Supper
after the Reformed fashion, in a cave (grotte, de Croutelles)
near the town, which long afterwards was called " Calvin's
Cave." 3

Towards the close of the year 1534, he ventured on a visit
to Paris. There he met, for the first time, the Spanish physi
cian, Michael Servetus, who had recently published his hereti
cal book On the Errors of the Trinity, and challenged him to
a disputation. Calvin accepted the challenge at the risk of
his safety, and waited for him in a house in the Rue Saint
Antoine ; but Servetus did not appear. Twenty years after
wards he reminded Servetus of this interview : " You know
that at that time I was ready to do everything for you, and
did not even count my life too dear that I might convert you
from your errors." Would that he had succeeded at that
time, or never seen the unfortunate heretic again.

1 Beza (XXI. 123) : " Excepit juvenem [Calvinum"] bonus senex et libenter vidit,
futurum augurans insigne ccelestis in Gallia instaurandi regni instrumentum."

2 According to Florimond de Raemond.

3 Bayle, Art. Calvin and La Place. Crottet, Petite Chronique Protestante
de France, 96 sqq. Stahelin, I. 32. Lefranc, 120. Herminjard, III. 202, note 4.

§ 78. CALVIN AT BASEL. 325

§ 77. The Sleep of the Soul. 1534.

Psychopannychia. Aureliae, 1534 ; 2d and revised ed. Basel, 1536 ; 3d ed. Strass-
burg, 1542; French trans. Paris, 1558; republished in Opera, vol. V. 165-
232. — Comp. the analysis of STAHELIN, I. 36-40, and La France Prof. III.
549. English translation in Calvin's Tracts, III. 413-490.

Before Calvin left France, he wrote, at Orleans, 1534, his
first theological book, entitled Psychopannychia, or the Sleep
of the Soul. He refutes in it the hypothesis entertained by
some Anabaptists, of the sleep of the soul between death and
resurrection, and proves the unbroken and conscious com
munion of believers with Christ, their living Head. He
appeals no more to philosophy and the classics, as in his ear
lier book on Seneca, but solely to the Scriptures, as the only
rule of faith. Reason can give us no light on the future
world, which lies beyond our experience.

He wished to protect, by this book, the evangelical Protes
tants against the charge of heresy and vagary. They were
often confounded with the Anabaptists who roused in the
same year the wrath of all the German princes by the excesses
of a radical and fanatical faction at Miinster.

§ 78. Calvin at Basel 1535 to 1536.

The outbreak of the bloody persecution, in October, 1534,
induced Calvin to leave his native land and to seek safety in
free Switzerland. He was accompanied by his friend and
pupil, Louis du Tillet, who followed him as far as Geneva,
and remained with him till the end of August, 1537, when
he returned to France and to the Roman Church.1

The travellers passed through Lorraine. On the frontier
of Germany, near Metz, they were robbed by an unfaithful
servant. They arrived utterly destitute at Strassburg, then
a city of refuge for French Protestants. They were kindly
received and aided by Bucer.

1 M. Crottet, Correspondance de Calvin avec L. du Tillet, 1850.

326 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

After a few days' rest they proceeded to Basel, their
proper destination. There Farel had found a hospitable
home in 1524, and Cop and Courault ten years later. Calvin
wished a quiet place for study where he could promote the
cause of the Gospel by his pen. He lodged with his friend in
the house of Catharina I\lein (Petita), who thirty years after
wards was the hostess of another famous refugee, the philoso
pher, Petrus Ramus, and spoke to him with enthusiasm of
the young Calvin, "the light of France." :

He was kindly welcomed by Simon Grynseus and Wolf
gang Capito, the heads of the university. He prosecuted
with Grynseus his study of the Hebrew. He dedicated
to him in gratitude his commentary on the Epistle to the
Romans (1539). He became acquainted also with Bullinger
of Zurich, who attended the conference of Reformed Swiss
divines for the preparation of the first Helvetic Confession
(1536).2

According to a Roman Catholic report, Calvin, in company
with Bucer, had a personal interview with Erasmus, to whom
three years before he had sent a copy of his commentary on
Seneca with a high compliment to his scholarship. The vet
eran scholar is reported to have said to Bucer on that occasion
that ua great pestilence was arising in the Church against
the Church." 3 But Erasmus was too polite, thus to insult
a stranger. Moreover, he was then living at Freiburg in
Germany and had broken off all intercourse with Protestants.
When he returned to Basel in July, 1536, on his way to the
Netherlands, he took sick and died ; and at that time Calvin
was in Italy. The report therefore is an idle fiction.4

1 "Lumen Gallic" See the Reminiscences of Basel, by Petrus Ramus (1572),
quoted in Op. XXI. 194. Ch. Waddington, Ramus, sa vie, ses ecrits et ses
opinions, Paris, 1855. Stahelin, I. 41 sqq. Kampschulte, I. 250.

2 See above, p. 219. Ep. 2634, referred to in Op. XXI. 196.

3 "Video magnam pestem oriri in Ecclesia contra Ecclesiam."

4 It rests on the sole authority of Florimond de Raymond, p. 890. He puts
the visit in the year 1534, when Calvin was yet in France, and could not

§ 79. CALVIN'S INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 327

Calvin avoided publicity and lived in scholarly seclusion.
He spent in Basel a year and a few months, from January,
1535, till about March, 1536.

§ 79. Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.

1. The full title of the first edition is "CHRISTIA | NAE RELIGIONIS INSTI |

tutio totam fere pietatis summam et quic \ quid est in doctrina salutis cognitu
ne- | cessarium, complectens .• omnibus pie | tatis studiosis lectu dignissi \ mum
opus, ac re- \ cens edi- \ turn. \ PR.EFATIO | AD CHRI | STIANISSIMUM REGEM
FRANCIS, qua \ hie ei liber pro confessione Jidei \ ojfertur. \ JOANNE CAL-
VINO | Nouiodunensi authore. \ BASILED, | M.D. XXXVI." The dedica
tory Preface is dated ' X. Calendas Septembres ' (i.e. August 23), without
the year; but at the close of the book the month of March, 1536, is given
as the date of publication. The first two French editions (1541 and 1545)
supplement the date of the Preface correctly : "De Basle le vingt-troysiesme
d'Aonst mil cinq cent trente cinq." The manuscript, then, was completed
in August, 1535, but it took nearly a year to print it.

2. The last improved edition from the pen of the author (the fifth Latin) is

a thorough reconstruction, and bears the title : " INSTITUTIO CHRI | STIAN.E
RELIGIONIS, in libros qua \ tuor nunc primum digesta, certisque distincta cap-
itibus, ad aptissimam \ methodum : aucta etiam tarn magna accessions ut pro-
pemodum opus \ novum haberi possit. \ JOANNE CALVINO AUTHORE. | OLIVA
ROBERTI STEPHANI. | Genevce. \ M.D. LIX." The subsequent Latin edi
tions are reprints of the ed. of 1559, with an index by Nic. Colladon,
another by Marlorat. The Elzevir ed. Leyden, 1654, fol., was especially
esteemed for its beauty and accuracy. A convenient modern ed. by
Tholuck (Berlin, 1834, 2d ed. 1846).

3. The first French edition appeared without the name and place of the printer

(probably Michel du Bois at Geneva), under the title : "Institution de la
religion chrestienne en laquelle est comprinse line somme de pie'te'. . . . compose'e
en latin par J. Calvin et translated par luy mesme. Avec la preface addressee
an tres chrestien Hoy de France, Francois premier de ce noin : par laquelle ce
present livre luy est offert pour confession de Foy. M.D. XLI." 822 pp. 8°, 2rl
ed. Geneve, Jean Girard, 1545; 3d ed. 1551; 4th ed. 1553; 5th ed. 1554;
6th ed. 1557; 7th ed. 1560, in fol.; 8th ed. 1561, in 8°; 9th ed. 1561, in
4°; 10th ed. 1562, etc. ; 15th ed. Geneva, 1564. Elzevir ed. Leyden, 1654.

4. The Strassburg editors devote the first four volumes to the different editions

of the Institutes in both languages. Vol. I. contains the editio princeps
Latina of Basel, 1536 (pp. 10-247), and the variations of six editions inter-
accompany Bucer. Beza and Colladon know nothing of such an interview.
Bayle doubted it. Merle d'Aubigne, III. 203-204 (Engl. trans. III. 183-185),
however, accepts and embellishes it as if he had been present and heard the
colloquy of the three scholars.

328 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

vening between the first and the last, viz., the Strassburg editions of 1539,
1543, 1545, and the Geneva editions of 1550, 1553, 1554 (pp. 253-1152) ;
vol. II., the editio postrema of 1559 (pp. 1-1118) ; vols. III. and IV"., the
last edition of the French translation, or free reproduction rather (1560) r
with the variations of former editions.

5. The question of the priority of the Latin or French text is now settled in

favor of the former. See JULES BONNET, in the Bulletin de la Societe de
Vhistoire du protestantisme francais for 1858, vol. VI. p. 137 sqq., Stiihelin,
vol. I. p. 55, and the Strassburg editors of the Opera, in the ample Prolegom
ena to vols. I. and III. Calvin himself says expressly (in the Preface to
his French ed. 1541), that he first wrote the Institutes in Latin (" premiere-
ment Vay mis en latin "), for readers of all nations, and that he translated
or reproduced them afterwards for the special benefit of Frenchmen (" I' ay
aussi translate* en noire langage"). In a letter to his friend, Fra^ois
Daniel, dated Lausanne, Oct. 13, 1536, he writes that he began the French
translation soon after the publication of the Latin (Letters, ed. Bonnet,
vol. I. p. 21), but it did not appear till 1541, under the title given above.
The erroneous assertion of a French original, so often repeated (by Bayle,
Maimbourg, Basnage, and more recently by Henry, vol. I. p. 104 ; III. p.
177 ; Dorner, Gesch. der protest. Theol. p. 375 ; also by Guizot, H. B. Smith,
and Dyer), arose from confounding the date of the Preface as given in
the French editions (23 Aug., 1535), with the later date of publication
(March, 1536). It is quite possible, however, that the dedication to
Francis I. was first written in French, and this would most naturally
account for the earlier date in the French editions.

6. On the differences of the several editions, comp. J. THOMAS : Histoire de

Vinstit. chre'tienne de J. Calv. Strasbourg, 1859. ALEX. SCHWEIZER : Central-
dogmen, 1. 150 sqq. (Zurich, 1854). KOSTLIN : Calvin"1 s Institutio nach Form
und Inhalt, in the " Studien und Kritiken " for 1868.

7. On the numerous translations, see above, pp. 225, 265; HENRY, vol. III.

Beilagen, 178-189; and La France Prot. III. 553.

In the ancient and venerable city of Basel, on the borders
of Switzerland, France, and Germany — the residence of Eras
mus and GEcolampadius, the place where a reformatory council
had met in 1430, and where the first Greek Testament was
printed in 1516 from manuscripts of the university library -
John Calvin, then a mere youth of twenty-six years, and an
exile from his native land, finished and published, twenty
years after the first print of the Greek Testament, his Insti
tutes of the Christian Religion, by which he astonished the
world and took at once the front rank among the literary
champions of the evangelical faith.

§ 79. CALVIN'S INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 329

This book is the masterpiece of a precocious genius of com
manding intellectual and spiritual depth and power. It is
one of the few truly classical productions in the history of
theology, and has given its author the double title of the
Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas of the Reformed Church.1

The Roman Catholics at once perceived the significance of
the Institutio^ and called it the Koran and Talmud of heresy.2
It was burned by order of the Sorbonne at Paris and other
places, and more fiercely and persistently persecuted than any
book of the sixteenth century ; but, we must add, it has found
also great admirers among Catholics who, while totally dis
senting from its theological system and antipopish temper,
freely admit its great merits in the non-polemical parts.3

The Evangelicals greeted the Institutio at once with enthus
iastic praise as the clearest, strongest, most logical, and most
convincing defence of Christian doctrines since the days of
the apostles. A few weeks after its publication Bucer wrote
to the author : " It is evident that the Lord has elected you
as his organ for the bestowment of the richest fulness of
blessing to his Church." 4

Nor is this admiration confined to orthodox Protestants.
Dr. Baur, the founder of the Tubingen school of historical
critics, declares this book of Calvin to be " in every respect
a truly classical work, distinguished in a high degree by origi
nality and acuteness of conception, systematic consistency,
and clear, luminous method." 5 And Dr. Hase pointedly
calls it "the grandest scientific justification of Augustinian-

1 Kampsehulte, a Roman Catholic historian, and others, call him " the
Aristotle;" Martin, a liberal French historian, and others, call him — more
appropriately — "the Thomas Aquinas/' of Protestantism.

2 Florimond de Rasmond : "T Alcoran on plutot Je Talmud de I'tiere'sie."

3 See the testimonies of Bossuet, and especially of Kampsehulte, quoted in
§ 68, p. 285 sq.

4 "Videmur nobis agnoscere, Dominum instituisse tui nsum ecclesus suis uber-
rimum concedere, eisque tuo ministerio latissime commodare." Herminjard, IV.
118.

5 Dogmengeschichte, vol. III. 27.

330 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

ism, full of religious depth with inexorable consistency of
thought." l

The Institutio is not a book for the people, and has not
the rousing power which Luther's Appeal to the German
Nobility, and his tract on Christian Freedom exerted upon
the Germans ; but it is a book for scholars of all nations, and
had a deeper and more lasting effect upon them than any
work of the Reformers. Edition followed edition, and trans
lations were made into nearly all the languages of Europe.2

Calvin gives a systematic exposition of the Christian relig
ion in general, and a vindication of the evangelical faith in
particular, with the apologetic and practical aim of defending
the Protestant believers against calumny and persecution to
which they were then exposed, especially in France. He
writes under the inspiration of a heroic faith that is ready for
the stake, and with a glowing enthusiasm for the pure Gospel
of Christ, which had been obscured and deprived of its effect
by human traditions, but had now risen from this rubbish to
new life and power. He combines dogmatics and ethics in
organic unity.

He plants himself firmly on the immovable rock of the
Word of God, as the only safe guide in matters of faith and
duty. He exhibits on every page a thorough, well-digested
knowledge of Scripture which is truly astonishing. He does
not simply quote from it as a body of proof texts, in a mechan
ical way, like the scholastic dogmaticians of the seventeenth
century, but he views it as an organic whole, and weaves it
into his system. He bases the authority of Scripture on its
intrinsic excellency and the testimony of the Holy Spirit
speaking through it to the believer. He makes also judicious
and discriminating use of the fathers, especially St. Augustin,

1 Kirchengeschichte, p. 405 (llth edition).

2 Many editors print, as a motto, the distich of the Hungarian, Paul Thur-
ius :

" Prceter apostolicas post Christi tempora chartas,
Huic peperere libro scecula nulla parem."

§ 79. CALVIN'S INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 331

not as judges but as witnesses of the truth, and abstains from
those depreciatory remarks in which Luther occasionally
indulged when, instead of his favorite dogma of justification
by faith, he found in them much ascetic monkery and exalta
tion of human merit. " They overwhelm us," says Calvin,
in the dedicatory Preface, " with senseless clamors, as despisers
and enemies of the fathers. But if it were consistent with
my present design, I could easily support by their suffrages
most of the sentiments that we now maintain. Yet while
we make use of their writings, we always remember that ' all
things are ours,' to serve us, not to have dominion over us,
and that cwe are Christ's alone' (1 Cor. 3 : 21-23), and owe
him universal obedience. He who neglects this distinction
will have nothing certain in religion ; since those holy men
were ignorant of many things, frequently at variance with
each other, and sometimes even inconsistent with them
selves." He also fully recognizes the indispensable use of
reason in the apprehension and defence of truth and the refu
tation of error, and excels in the power of severe logical argu
mentation; while he is free from scholastic dryness and
pedantry. But he subordinates reason and tradition to the
supreme authority of Scripture as he understands it.

The style is luminous and forcible. Calvin had full com
mand of the majesty, dignity, and elegance of the Latin lan
guage. The discussion flows on continuously and melodi
ously like a river of fresh water through green meadows and
sublime mountain scenery. The whole work is well propor
tioned. It is pervaded by intense earnestness and fearless
consistency which commands respect even where his argu
ments fail to carry conviction, or where we feel offended by
the contemptuous tone of his polemics, or feel a shudder at
his decretum horribile.

Calvin's system of doctrine agrees with the oecumenical
creeds in theology and Christology ; with Augustinianism in
anthropology and soteriology, but dissents from the mediaeval

332 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

tradition in ecclesiology, sacramentology, and eschatology.
We shall discuss the prominent features of this system in the
chapter on Calvin's Theology.

The Institutio was dedicated to King Francis I. of France
(1494-1547), who at that time cruelly persecuted his Prot
estant subjects. As Justin Martyr and other early Apolo
gists addressed the Roman emperors in behalf of the despised
and persecuted sect of the Christians, vindicating them
against the foul charges of atheism, immorality, and hos
tility to Caesar, and pleading for toleration, so Calvin appealed
to the French monarch in defence of his Protestant country
men, then a small sect, as much despised, calumniated, and
persecuted, and as moral and innocent as the Christians in
the old Roman empire, with a manly dignity, frankness, and
pathos never surpassed before or since. He followed the
example set by Zwingli who addressed his dying confession
of faith to the same sovereign (1531). These appeals, like
the apologies of the ante-Nicene age, failed to reach or to
affect the throne, but they moulded public opinion which is
mightier than thrones, and they are a living force to-day.

The preface to the Institutio is reckoned among the three
immortal prefaces in literature. The other two are President
De Thou's preface to his History of France, and Casaubon's
preface to Polybius. Calvin's preface is superior to them in
importance and interest. Take the beginning and the close
as specimens.1

" When I began this work, Sire, nothing was farther from my thoughts
than writing a book which would afterwards be presented to your Majesty.
My intention was only to lay down some elementary principles, by which
inquirers on the subject of religion might be instructed in the nature of true
piety. And this labor I undertook chiefly for my countrymen, the French, of
whom I apprehend multitudes to be hungering and thirsting after Christ, but
saw very few possessing any real knowledge of him. That this was my design
the book itself proves by its simple method and unadorned composition. But

1 I have made use of the faithful translation of John Allen, compared with
the Latin original.

§ 79. CALVIN'S INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 333

when I perceived that the fury of certain wicked men in your kingdom had
grown to such a height, as to have no room in the land for sound doctrine, I
thought I should be usefully employed, if in the same work I delivered my
instructions to them, and exhibited my confession to you, that you may know
the nature of that doctrine, which is the object of such unbounded rage to
those madmen who are now disturbing the country with fire and sword. For
I shall not be afraid to acknowledge, that this treatise contains a summary of
that very doctrine, which, according to their clamors, deserves to be punished
with imprisonment, banishment, proscription, and flames, and to be extermi
nated from the face of the earth. I well know with what atrocious insinua
tions your ears have been filled by them, in order to render our cause most
odious in your esteem; but your clemency should lead you to consider that if
accusation be accounted a sufficient evidence of guilt, there will be an end of
all innocence in words and actions."

*********

"But I return to you, Sire. Let not your Majesty be at all moved by
those groundless accusations with which our adversaries endeavor to terrify
you ; as that the sole tendency and design of this new gospel, for so they call
it, is to furnish a pretext for seditions, and to gain impunity for all crimes.
'For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace;' nor is 'the Son of
God/ who came to destroy 'the works of the devil, the minister of sin.' And
it is unjust to charge us with such motives and designs of which we have
never given cause for the least suspicion. Is it probable that we are medita
ting the subversion of kingdoms ? We, who were never heard to utter a fac
tious word, whose lives were ever known to be peaceable and honest while
we lived under your government, and who, even now in our exile, cease not to
pray for all prosperity to attend yourself and your kingdom ! Is it probable
that we are seeking an unlimited license to commit crimes with impunity, in
whose conduct, though many things may be blamed, yet there is nothing
worthy of such severe reproach ? Nor have we, by divine grace, profited so
little in the gospel, but that our life may be to our detractors an example of
chastity, liberality, mercy, temperance, patience, modesty, and every other
virtue. It is an undeniable fact, that we sincerely fear and worship God,
whose name we desire to be sanctified both by our life and by our death; and
envy itself is constrained to bear testimony to the innocence and civil integrity
of some of us, who have suffered the punishment of death, for that very thing
which ought to be accounted their highest praise. But if the gospel be made
a pretext for tumults, which has not yet happened in your kingdom ; if any
persons make the liberty of divine grace an excuse for the licentiousness of
their vices, of whom I have known many ; there are laws and legal penalties,
by which they may be punished according to their deserts : only let not the
gospel of God be reproached for the crimes of wicked men. You have now,
Sire, the virulent iniquity of our calumniators laid before you in a sufficient
number of instances, that you may not receive their accusations with too
credulous an ear.

" I fear I have gone too much into the detail, as this preface already
approaches the size of a full apology ; whereas, I intended it not to contain

334 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

our defence, but only to prepare your mind to attend to the pleading of our
cause ; for though you are now averse and alienated from us, and even inflamed
against us, we despair not of regaining your favor, if you will only once read
with calmness and composure this our confession, which we intend as our
defence before your Majesty. But, on the contrary, if your ears are so pre
occupied with the whispers of the malevolent, as to leave no opportunity for
the accused to speak for themselves, and if those outrageous furies, with your
connivance, continue to persecute with imprisonments, scourges, tortures, con
fiscations, and flames, we shall indeed, like sheep destined to the slaughter,
be reduced to the greatest extremities. Yet shall we in patience possess our
souls, and wait for the mighty hand of the Lord, which undoubtedly will in
time appear, and show itself armed for the deliverance of the poor from their
affliction, and for the punishment of their despisers, who now exult in such
perfect security.

" May the Lord, the King of kings, establish your throne in righteousness,
and your kingdom with equity."

The first edition of the Institutes was a brief manual contain
ing, in six chapters, an exposition 1) of the Decalogue ; 2) of
the Apostles' Creed ; 3) of the Lord's Prayer ; 4) of baptism
and the Lord's Supper ; 5) of the other so-called Sacraments ;
6) of Christian liberty, Church government, and discipline.
The second edition has seventeen, the third, twenty-one chap
ters. In the author's last edition of 1559, it grew to four or
five times its original size, and was divided into four books,
each book into a number of chapters (from seventeen to
twenty-five), and each chapter into sections. It follows in the
main, like every good catechism, the order of the Apostles'
Creed, which is the order of God's revelation as Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. The first book discusses the knowledge of
God the Creator (theology proper) ; the second, the knowl
edge of God the Redeemer (Christology) ; the third, of the
Holy Spirit and the application of the saving work of Christ
(soteriology) ; the fourth, the means of grace, namely, the
Church and the sacraments.1

1 He himself gives in the preface to the last edition the following account
of the successive improvements of the work : " In the first edition of this work,
not expecting that success which the Lord in his infinite goodness hath given,
I handled the subject for the most part in a superficial manner, as is usual in
small treatises. But when I understood that it had obtained from almost all

§ 79. CALVIN'S INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 335

Although the work has been vastly improved under the
revising hand of the author, in size and fulness of statement,
the first edition contains all the essential features of his sys
tem. "Ex ungue leonem" His doctrine of predestination,
however, is stated in a more simple and less objectionable
form. He dwells on the bright and comforting side of that
doctrine, namely, the eternal election by the free grace of
God in Christ, and leaves out the dark mystery of repro
bation and preterition.1 He gives the light without the
shade, the truth without the error. He avoids the para
doxes of Luther and Zwingli, and keeps within the limits
of a wise moderation. The fuller logical development of
his views on predestination and on the Church, dates from
his sojourn in Strassburg, where he wrote the second edition
of the Institutes, and his Commentary on the Epistle to the
Romans.

The following sections on some of his leading doctrines
from the last edition give a fair idea of the spirit and method
of the work :

pious persons such a favorable acceptance as I never could have presumed to
wish, much less to hope, while I was conscious of receiving far more attention
than I had deserved, I thought it would evince great ingratitude, if I did not
endeavor at least, according to my humble ability, to make some suitable
return for the attentions paid to me ; — attentions of themselves calculated to
stimulate my industry. Nor did I attempt this only in the second edition,
but in every succeeding one the work has been improved by some farther
enlargements. But though I repented not the labor then devoted to it, yet
I never satisfied myself till it was arranged in the order in which it is now
published. And I trust I have here presented to my readers what their judg
ments will unite in approving. Of my diligent application to the accomplish
ment of this service for the Church of God, I can produce abundant proof.
For, last winter, when I thought that a quartan ague would speedily termi
nate in my death, the more my disorder increased, the less I spared myself
till I had finished this book, to leave it behind me as some grateful return to
such kind solicitations of the religious public. Indeed, I would rather it had
been done sooner, but it is soon enough, if well enough. I shall think it has
appeared at the proper time, when I shall find it to have been more beneficial
than before to the Church of God. This is my only wish."

1 See the quotations of the several passages bearing upon this doctrine in
Schweizer's Centraldogmen, I. 150-152, and in Stahelin, I. 66-68.

836 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE KNOWLEDGE or GOD AND THE KNOWLEDGE

OF OURSELVES.

(Book I. eh. 1, §§ 1, 2.)

1 "True and substantial wisdom principally consists of two parts, the
knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves. But while these two
branches of knowledge are so intimately connected, which of them precedes
and produces the other, is not easy to discover. For, in the first place, no
man can take a survey of himself but he must immediately turn to the con
templation of God, in whom he 'lives and moves' (Acts 17 : 28) ; since it is
evident that the talents which we possess are not from ourselves, and that our
very existence is nothing but a subsistence in God alone. These bounties,
distilling to us by drops from heaven, form, as it were, so many streams con
ducting us to the fountain-head. Our poverty conduces to a clearer display
of the infinite fulness of God. Especially the miserable ruin, into which we
have been plunged by the defection of the first man, compels us to raise our
eyes towards heaven not only as hungry and famished, to seek thence a supply
for our wants, but, aroused with fear, to learn humility.

"For since man is subject to a world of miseries, and has been spoiled of
his divine array, this melancholy exposure discovers an immense mass of
deformity. Every one, therefore, must be so impressed with a consciousness
of his own infelicity, as to arrive at some knowledge of God. Thus a sense
of our ignorance, vanity, poverty, infirmity, depravity, and corruption, leads
us to perceive and acknowledge that in the Lord alone are to be found true
wisdom, solid strength, perfect goodness, and unspotted righteousness ; and
so, by our imperfections, we are excited to a consideration of the perfections
of God. Nor can we really aspire toward him, till we have begun to be dis
pleased with ourselves. For who would not gladly rest satisfied with himself ?
Where is the man not actually absorbed in self-complacency, while he remains
unacquainted with his true situation, or content with his own endowments,
and ignorant or forgetful of his own misery ? The knowledge of ourselves,
therefore, is not only an incitement to seek after God, but likewise a consid
erable assistance towards finding him.

2. " On the other hand, it is plain that no man can arrive at the true knowl
edge of himself, without having first contemplated the divine character, and
then descended to the consideration of his own. For such is the native pride
of us all, that we invariably esteem ourselves righteous, innocent, wise, and
holy, till we are convinced by clear proofs of our unrighteousness, turpitude,
folly, and impurity. But we are never thus convinced, while we confine our
attention to ourselves and regard not the Lord, who is the only standard by
which this judgment ought to be formed." . . .

RATIONAL PROOFS TO ESTABLISH THE BELIEF IN THE SCRIPTURE.
(Book I. ch. 8, §§ 1, 2.)

1. "Without this certainty [that is, the testimony of the Holy Spirit],
better and stronger than any human judgment, in vain will the authority of

§ 79. CALVIN'S INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN KELIGION. 337

the Scripture be either defended by arguments, or established by the consent
of the Church, or confirmed by any other supports ; since, unless the founda
tion be laid, it remains in perpetual suspense. Whilst, on the contrary, when
regarding it in a different point of view from common things, we have once
religiously received it in a manner worthy of its excellence, we shall then
derive great assistance from things which before were not sufficient to estab
lish the certainty of it in our minds. For it is admirable to observe how much
it conduces to our confirmation, attentively to study the order and disposition
of the divine wisdom dispensed in it, the heavenly nature of its doctrine, which
never savors of anything terrestrial, the beautiful agreement of all the parts
with each other, and other similar characters adapted to conciliate respect to
any writings. But our hearts are more strongly confirmed, when we reflect
that we are constrained to admire it more by the dignity of the subjects than
by the beauties of the language. For even this did not happen without the
particular providence of God, that the sublime mysteries of the kingdom of
heaven should be communicated, for the most part, in an humble and con
temptible style : lest if they had been illustrated with more of the splendor of
eloquence, the impious might cavil that their triumph is only the triumph of
eloquence. Now, since that uncultivated and almost rude simplicity procures
itself more reverence than all the graces of rhetoric, what opinion can we
form, but that the force of truth in the sacred Scripture is too powerful to
need the assistance of verbal art 1 Justly, therefore, does the apostle argue
that the faith of the Corinthians was founded 'not in the wisdom of men, but
in the power of God,' because his preaching among them was ' not with entic
ing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit of power'
(1 Cor. 2:4). For the truth is vindicated from every doubt, when, unassisted
by foreign aid, it is sufficient for its own support. But that this is the peculiar
property of the Scripture, appears from the insufficiency of any human com
positions, however artificially polished, to make an equal impression on our
minds. Read Demosthenes or Cicero ; read Plato, Aristotle, or any others of
that class ; I grant that you will be attracted, delighted, moved, and enrap
tured by them in a surprising manner ; but if, after reading them, you turn
to the perusal of the sacred volume, whether you are willing or unwilling, it
will affect you so powerfully, it will so penetrate your heart, and impress
itself so strongly on your mind, that, compared with its energetic influence,
the beauties of rhetoricians and philosophers will almost entirely disappear;
so that it is easy to perceive something divine in the sacred Scriptures, which
far surpass the highest attainments and ornaments of human industry.

2. "I grant, indeed, that the diction of some of the prophets is neat and ele
gant, and even splendid ; so that they are not inferior in eloquence to the
heathen writers. And by such examples the Holy Spirit hath been pleased to
show that he was not deficient in eloquence, though elsewhere he hath used
a rude and homely style. But whether we read David, Isaiah, and others
that resemble them, who have a sweet and pleasant flow of words, or Amos,
the herdsman, Jeremiah, and Zechariah, whose rougher language savors of
rusticity; that majesty of the Spirit which I have mentioned is everywhere
conspicuous. . . . With respect to the sacred Scripture, though presumptuous

338 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

men try to cavil at various passages, yet it is evidently replete with sentences
which are beyond the powers of human conception. Let all the prophets be
examined, not one will be found who has not far surpassed the ability of men ;
so that those to whom their doctrine is insipid must be accounted utterly des
titute of all true taste. . . .

11. "If we proceed to the New Testament, by what solid foundations is its
truth supported ? Three evangelists recite their history in a low and mean
style. Many proud men are disgusted with that simplicity because they
attend not to the principal points of doctrine ; whence it were easy to infer,
that they treat of heavenly mysteries which are above human capacity. They
who have a spark of ingenuous modesty will certainly be ashamed, if they
peruse the first chapter of Luke. Now the discourses of Christ, a concise
summary of which is comprised in these three evangelists, easily exempt their
writings from contempt. But John, thundering from his sublimity, more
powerfully than any thunderbolt, levels to the dust the obstinacy of those
whom he does not compel to the obedience of faith. Let all those censorious
critics, whose supreme pleasure consists in banishing all reverence for the
Scripture out of their own hearts and the hearts of others, come forth to pub
lic view. Let them read the Gospel of John : whether they wish it or not, they
will there find numerous passages, which, at least, arouse their indolence, and
which will even imprint a horrible brand on their consciences to restrain their
ridicule. Similar is the method of Paul and of Peter, in whose writings,
though the greater part be obscure, yet their heavenly majesty attracts uni
versal attention. But this one circumstance raises their doctrine sufficiently
above the world, that Matthew, who had before been confined to the profit of
his table, and Peter and John, who had been employed in fishing-boats, all
plain, unlettered men, had learned nothing in any human school which they
could communicate to others. And Paul, from not only a professed but a
cruel and sanguinary enemy, being converted to a new man, proves by his
sudden and unhoped-for change, that he was constrained, by a command from
heaven, to vindicate that doctrine which he had before opposed. Let these
deny that the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles ; or, at least, let them
dispute the credibility of the history : yet the fact itself loudly proclaims that
they were taught by the Spirit, who, though before despised as some of the
meanest of the people, suddenly began to discourse in such a magnificent
manner on the mysteries of heaven. . . .

13. " Wherefore, the Scripture will then only be effectual to produce the
saving knowledge of God, when the certainty of it shall be founded on the
internal persuasion of the Holy Spirit. Thus those human testimonies, which
contribute to its confirmation, will not be useless, if they follow that first and
principal proof, as secondary aids to our imbecility. But those persons betray
great folly, who wish it to be demonstrated to infidels that the Scripture is the
Word of God, which cannot be known without faith. Augustin, therefore,
justly observes, that piety and peace of mind ought to precede in order that
a man may understand somewhat of such great subjects."

§ 79. CALVIN'S INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 339

MEDITATION ON THE FUTURE LIFE.
(Book III. ch. 9, §§ 1, 3, 6.)

1. "With whatever kind of tribulation we may be afflicted, we should
always keep the end in view; to habituate ourselves to a contempt of the
present life, that we may thereby be excited to meditation on that which is to
come. For the Lord, well knowing our strong natural inclination to a brutish
love of the world, adopts a most excellent method to reclaim us and rouse us
from one insensibility that we may not be too tenaciously attached to that
foolish affection. There is not one of us who is not desirous of appearing
through the whole course of his life, to aspire and strive after celestial immor
tality. For we are ashamed of excelling in no respect the brutal herds, whose
condition would not be at all inferior to ours, unless there remained to us a
hope of eternity after death. But if you examine the designs, pursuits, and
actions of every individual, you will find nothing in them but what is terres
trial. Hence that stupidity, that the mental eyes, dazzled with the vain splen
dor of riches, powers, and honors, cannot see to any considerable distance.
The heart also, occupied and oppressed with avarice, ambition, and other
inordinate desires, cannot rise to any eminence. In a word, the whole soul,
fascinated by carnal allurements, seeks its felicity on earth.

" To oppose this evil, the Lord, by continual lessons of miseries, teaches
his children the vanity of the present life. That they may not promise them
selves profound and secure peace in it, therefore he permits them to be fre
quently disquieted and infested with wars or tumults, with robberies or other
injuries. That they may not aspire with too much avidity after transient
and uncertain riches, or depend on those which they possess, sometimes by
exile, sometimes by the sterility of the land, sometimes by a conflagration,
sometimes by other means, he reduces them to indigence, or at least confines
them within the limits of mediocrity. That they may not be too complacently
delighted with conjugal blessings, he either causes them to be distressed with
the wickedness of their wives, or humbles them with a wicked offspring, or
afflicts them with want or loss of children. But if in all these things he is
more indulgent to them, yet that they may not be inflated with vainglory, or
improper confidence, he shows them by diseases and dangers the unstable and
transitory nature of all mortal blessings. We therefore truly derive advan
tages from the discipline of the cross, only when we learn that this life, con
sidered in itself, is unquiet, turbulent, miserable in numberless instances, and
in no respect altogether happy ; and that all its reputed blessings are uncer
tain, transient, vain, and adulterated with a mixture of many evils ; and in
consequence of this at once conclude that nothing can be sought or expected
on earth but conflict, and that when we think of a crown we must raise our
eyes toward heaven. For it must be admitted that the mind is never seriously
excited to desire and meditate on the future life, without having previously
imbibed a contempt of the present. . . .

3. " But the faithful should accustom themselves to such a contempt of
the present life, as may not generate either hatred of life or ingratitude
towards God himself. For this life, though it is repleta with innumerable

340 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

miseries, is yet deservedly reckoned among the divine blessings which must
not be despised. Wherefore if we discover nothing of the divine beneficence
in it, we are already guilty of no small ingratitude towards God himself.
But to the faithful especially it should be a testimony of the divine benevo
lence, since the whole of it is destined to the advancement of their salvation.
For before he openly discovers to us the inheritance of eternal glory, he
intends to reveal himself as our Father in inferior instances ; and those are
the benefits which he daily confers on us. Since this life, then, is subservient
to a knowledge of the divine goodness, shall we fastidiously scorn it as though
it contained no particle of goodness in it? We must, therefore, have this
sense and affection, to class it among the bounties of the divine benignity
which are not to be rejected. For if Scripture testimonies were wanting,
which are very numerous and clear, even nature itself exhorts us to give
thanks to the Lord for having introduced us to the light of life, for granting
us the use of it, and giving us all the helps necessary to its preservation.
And it is a far superior reason for gratitude, if we consider that here we are
in some measure prepared for the glory of the heavenly kingdom. For the
Lord has ordained that they who are to be hereafter crowned in heaven, must
first engage in conflicts on earth, that they may not triumph without having
surmounted the difficulties of warfare and obtained the victory. Another
reason is, that here we begin in various blessings to taste the sweetness of the
divine benignity, that our hope and desire may be excited after the full reve
lation of it. When we have come to this conclusion, that our life in this
world is a gift of the divine clemency, which as we owe it to him, we ought to
remember with gratitude, it will then be time for us to descend to a consider
ation of its most miserable condition, that we may be delivered from exces
sive cupidity, to which, as has been observed, we are naturally inclined. . . .

6. "It is certainly true that the whole family of the faithful, as long as
they dwell on earth, must be accounted as ' sheep for the slaughter' (Rom.
8: 36), that they may be conformed to Christ their Head. Their state, there
fore, would be extremely deplorable, if they did not elevate their thoughts
towards heaven, to rise above all sublunary things, and look beyond present
appearances (1 Cor. 15 : 19). On the contrary, when they have once raised
their heads above this world, although they see the impious flourishing in
riches and honors, and enjoying the most profound tranquillity; though they
see them boasting of their splendor and luxury, and behold them abounding
in every delight; though they may also be harassed by their wickedness,
insulted by their pride, defrauded by their avarice, and may receive from
them any other lawless provocations ; yet they will find no difficulty in sup
porting themselves even under such calamities as these. For they will keep in
view that day when the Lord will receive his faithful servants into his peace
ful kingdom; will wipe every tear from their eyes (Isa. 25:8; Rev. 7: 17),
invest them with robes of joy, adorn them with crowns of glory, entertain
them with his ineffable delights, exalt them to fellowship with His Majesty,
and, in a word, honor them with a participation of his happiness. But the
impious, who have boon great in this world, he will precipitate down to the
lowest ignominy ; he will change their delights into torments, and their laughter

§ 79. CALVIN'S INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 341

and mirth into weeping and gnashing of teeth ; he will disturb their tran
quillity with dreadful agonies of conscience, and will punish their delicacy
with inextinguishable fire, and even put them in subjection to the pious, whose
patience they have abused. For, according to Paul, it is a righteous thing
with God, to recompense tribulation to those that trouble the saints, and rest
to those who are troubled, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven
(2 Thess. 1 : 6, 7). This is our only consolation, and deprived of this, we
must of necessity either sink into despondency of mind, or solace ourselves to
our own destruction with the vain pleasures of the world. For even the
psalmist confesses that he staggered, when he was too much engaged in con
templating the present prosperity of the impious ; and that he could no other
wise establish himself, till lie entered the sanctuary of God, and directed his
views to the last end of the godly and of the wicked (Ps. 73 : 2, etc.).

" To conclude in one word, the cross of Christ triumphs in the hearts of
believers over the devil and the flesh, over sin and impious men, only when
their eyes are directed to the power of the resurrection."

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
(Book 3, ch. 19, § 9.)

1. " It must be carefully observed, that Christian liberty is in all its branches
a spiritual thing ; all the virtue of which consists in appeasing terrified con
sciences before God, whether they are disquieted and solicitous concerning
the remission of their sins, or are anxious to know if their works, which are
imperfect and contaminated by the defilements of the flesh, be acceptable to
God, or are tormented concerning the use of things that are indifferent.
Wherefore those are guilty of perverting its meaning, who either make it the
pretext of their irregular appetites, that they may abuse the divine blessings
to the purposes of sensuality, or who suppose that there is no liberty but what
is used before men, and therefore in the exercise of it totally disregard their
weak brethren.

2. " The former of these sins is the more common in the present age.
There is scarcely any one whom his wealth permits to be sumptuous, who is
not delighted with luxurious splendor in his entertainments, in his dress, and
in his buildings ; who does not desire a pre-eminence in every species of luxury ;
who does not strangely flatter himself on his elegance. And all these things
are defended under the pretext of Christian liberty. They allege that they
are things indifferent. This, I admit, provided they be indifferently used.
But where they are too ardently coveted, proudly boasted, or luxuriously lav
ished, these things, of themselves otherwise indifferent, are completely polluted
by such vices. This passage of Paul makes an excellent distinction respect
ing things which are indifferent : ' Unto the pure, all things are pure : but unto
them that are defiled and unbelieving, is nothing pure ; but even their mind
and conscience is defiled' (Titus 1 : 15). For why are curses denounced on
rich men, who 'receive their consolation,' who are ' satiated,' who ' now laugh,'
who 'lie on beds of ivory,' who 'join field to field,' who 'have the harp and
lyre, and the 'tabret, and wine in their feasts ? ' (Luke 6 : 24, 25; Amos 6:1;

342 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Isa. 5:8). Ivory and gold and riches of all kinds are certainly blessings of
divine providence, not only permitted, but expressly designed for the use of
men ; nor are we anywhere prohibited to laugh, or to be satiated with food,
or to annex new possessions to those already enjoyed by ourselves or by our
ancestors, or to be delighted with musical harmony, or to drink wine. This,
indeed, is true; but amidst an abundance of all things, to be immersed in
sensual delights, to inebriate the heart and mind with present pleasures, and
perpetually to grasp at new ones, these things are very remote from a legiti
mate use of the divine blessings. Let them banish, therefore, immoderate
cupidity, excessive profusion, vanity, and arrogance ; that with a pure con
science they may make a proper use of the gifts of God. When their hearts
shall be formed to this sobriety, they will have a rule for the legitimate enjoy
ment of them. On the contrary, without this moderation, even the common
pleasures of the vulgar are chargeable with excess. For it is truly observed,
that a proud heart frequently dwells under coarse and ragged garments, and
that simplicity and humility are sometimes concealed under purple and fine
linen.

3. " Let all men in their respective stations, whether of poverty, of compe
tence, or of splendor, live in the remembrance of this truth, that God confers
his blessings on them for the support of life, not of luxury ; and let them con
sider this as the law of Christian liberty, that they learn the lesson which Paul
had learned, when he said : ' I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, there
with to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound .
everywhere and in all things I am intrusted, both to be full and to be hungry,
both to abound and to suffer need' (Phil. 4 : 11, 12)."

THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION.
(Book 3, ch. 21, § 1.)

1. " Nothing else [than election by free grace] will be sufficient to produce
in us suitable humility, or to impress us with a due sense of our great obliga
tions to God. Nor is there any other basis for solid confidence, even accord
ing to the authority of Christ, who, to deliver us from all fear and render us
invincible amidst so many dangers, snares, and deadly conflicts, promises to
preserve in safety all whom the Father has committed to his care. . . . The
discussion of predestination, a subject of itself rather intricate, is made very
perplexed and therefore dangerous by human curiosity, which no barriers can
restrain from wandering into forbidden labyrinths, and soaring beyond its
sphere, as if determined to leave none of the divine secrets unscrutinized or
unexplored. . . . The secrets of God's will which he determined to reveal to
us, he discovers in his Word ; and these are all that he foresaw would concern
us, or conduce to our advantage. . . .

2. " Let us bear in mind, that to desire any other knowledge of predesti
nation than what is unfolded in the Word of God, indicates as great folly, as
a wish to walk through impassable roads, or to see in the dark. Nor let us
be ashamed to be ignorant of some things relative to a subject in which there
is a kind of learned ignorance (aliqua docta ignorantia) . . . .

§ 80. FROM BASEL TO FEKRARA. 343

3. " Others desirous of remedying this evil, will leave all mention of pre
destination to be as it were buried. . . . Though their moderation is to be
commended in judging that mysteries ought to be handled with such great
sobriety, yet as they descend too low, they leave little influence on the mind
of man which refuses to submit to unreasonable restraints. . . . The Scrip
ture is the school of the Holy Spirit, in which as nothing necessary and use
ful to be known is omitted, so nothing is taught which it is not beneficial to
know. . . . Let us permit the Christian man to open his heart and his ears to
all the discourses addressed to him by God, only with this moderation, that as
soon as the Lord closes his sacred mouth, he shall also desist from further
inquiry. . . . 'The secret things,' says Moses (Deut. 29: 29), 'belong unto
the Lord our God : but those things which are revealed belong unto us, and
to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of his law.'

5. "Predestination, by which God adopts some to the hope of life, and
adjudges others to eternal death, no one, desirous of the credit of piety, dares
absolutely to deny. . . . Predestination we call the eternal decree of God, by
which he has determined in himself, what he would have to become of every
individual of mankind. For they are not all created with a similar destiny ;
but eternal life is fore-ordained for some, and eternal damnation for others.
Every man, therefore, being created for one or the other of these ends, we
say, he is predestinated either to life or to death. This God has not only tes
tified in particular persons, but has given as specimen of it in the whole pos
terity of Abraham, which should evidently show the future condition of every
nation to depend upon his decision (Deut. 32 : 8, 9)."

§ 80. From Basel to Ferrara. The Duchess RenSe.

Shortly after, if not before, the publication of his great
work, in March, 1536, Calvin, in company with Louis Du
Tillet, crossed the Alps to Italy, the classical soil of the liter
ary and artistic Renaissance. He hoped to aid the cause of
the religious Renaissance. He went to Italy as an evangelist,
not as a monk, like Luther, who learned at Rome a practical
lesson of the working of the papacy.

He spent a few months in Ferrara at the brilliant court
of the Duchess Ren£e or Renata (1511-1575), the second
daughter of Louis XII., of France, and made a deep and
permanent impression on her. She had probably heard of him
through Queen Marguerite and invited him to a visit. She
was a small and deformed, but noble, pious, and highly accom
plished lady, like her friends, Queen Marguerite and Vittoria
Colonna. She gathered around her the brightest Avits of the

344 THE REFORMATION IX FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Renaissance, from Italy and France, but she sympathized still
more with the spirit of the Reformation, and was fairly capti
vated by Calvin. She chose him as the guide of her con
science, and consulted him hereafter as a spiritual father as
long as he lived.1 He discharged this duty with the frank
ness and fidelity of a Christian pastor. Nothing can be more
manly and honorable than his letters to her. Guizot affirms,
from competent knowledge, that " the great Catholic bishops,
who in the seventeenth century directed the consciences of
the mightiest men in France, did not fulfil the difficult task
with more Christian firmness, intelligent justice and knowl
edge of the world than Calvin displayed in his intercourse
with the Duchess of Ferrara." 2

Renan wonders that such a stern moralist should have
exercised a lasting influence over such a lady, and attributes
it to the force of conviction. But the bond of union was
deeper. She recognized in Calvin the man who could satisfy
her spiritual nature and give her strength and comfort to
fight the battle of life, to face the danger of the Inquisition,
to suffer imprisonment, and after the death of her husband
and her return to France (1559) openly to confess and to
maintain the evangelical faith under most trying circum
stances when her own son-in-law, the Duke of Guise, carried
on a war of extermination against the Reformation. She
continued to correspond with Calvin very freely, and his last
letter in French, twenty-three days before his death, was

1 Beza (xxi. 123) : " Illam \_Ferrariensem Ducissam~\ in vero pietatis studio
confirmavit, nt einn postea vivum semper dilexerit, ac mine quoque sitperstes gratce in
defunctum memoriae specimen eclat Incident urn" Colladon (53) speaks likewise
of the high esteem in which the Duchess, then still living, held Calvin before
and after his death. Bolsec in his libel (Ch. v. 30), mentions the visit to
Ferrara, but suggests a mercenary motive. " Calvin," he says, " s'en alia vers
Allemaigne et Itallie : chercliant son adventure, et passa par la ville de Ferrare, on
il recent quelque aumone de l\fadame la Durhesse."

2 St. Louis and Calvin, p. 207. He adds: "And the duchess was not the
only person towards whom he fulfilled this duty of a Christian pastor. His
correspondence shows that he exercised a similar influence, in a spirit equally
lofty and judicious, over the consciences of many Protestants."

§ 80. FROM BASEL TO FERRARA. 345

directed to her. She was in Paris during the dreadful mas
sacre of St. Bartholomew, and succeeded in saving the lives
of some prominent Huguenots.1

Threatened by the Inquisition which then began its work
of crushing out both the Renaissance and the Reformation,
as two kindred serpents, Calvin bent his way, probably through
Aosta (the birthplace of Anselm of Canterbury) and over
the Great St. Bernard, to Switzerland.

An uncertain tradition connects with this journey a perse
cution and flight of Calvin in the valley of Aosta, which was
commemorated five years later (1541) by a memorial cross
with the inscription " Calvini Fuga" 2

1 See the correspondence in the Letters by Bonnet, and in the Strassburg-
Braunschweig edition. On Renc'e and her relation to Calvin see Henry, I.
159, 450-454; III. Beilage 142-153; in his smaller work, 62-69; 478-483;
Stahelin, I. 94-108; Sophia W. Weitzel, Rente of France, Duchess of Ferrara,
New York, 1883; and Theod. Schott, in Herzog2, XII. 693-701.

2 In the city of Aosta, near the Croix-de-Ville, stands a column eight feet
high, surmounted by a cross of stone, with the following inscription :

HANG
CALVINI FUGA

EREXIT

ANNO MDXLI
RELIGIONIS CONSTANTLY

REPARAVIT
ANNO MDCCXLI.

The inscription was renewed again in 1841, with the following addition
(according to Merle d'Aubigne, who saw it himself, vol. V. 531) :

ClVIUM MUNIFICENTIA

RENOVAVIT ET ADORNAVIT.

ANNO MDCCCXLI.

" Religionis constantia " must refer to the Roman faith which drove Calvin
and his heresy away. Dr. Merle d'Aubigne' accepts Calvin's flight on the
ground of this monumental testimony as a historical fact, but the silence
of Calvin, Beza, and Colladon throws doubt on it. See J. Bonnet, Calvin au
Val d' 'Aosta, 1861 ; A. Rilliet, Lfttre a ,1/V. Merle d'Aulncjne stir deux points
obscure de la vie de Cafain, 1864; Stahelin, I. 110; Kampsclmlte, I. 280
(note); La France Prof., III. 520; Thomas M'Crie, The Early Years of Cal
vin, pp. 95 and 104.

FONTANA : Documents del archivio vaticano e dell' Estenso circa, soggiorno di
Calvino a Ferrara, 1885. COMKA in " Rivista Christiana," 1885 ; SANDOVINI in
" Rivista stor. italiana," 1887.

346 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

At Basel he parted from Du Tillet and paid a last visit to
his native town to make a final settlement of family affairs.1

Then he left France, with his younger brother Antoine and
his sister Marie, forever, hoping to settle down in Basel or
Strassburg and to lead there the quiet life of a scholar and
author. Owing to the disturbances of war between Charles V.
and Francis I., which closed the direct route through Lor
raine, he had to take a circuitous journey through Geneva.

1 This visit to Noyon is mentioned by Beza in the Latin Vita, who adds
that he then brought his only surviving brother Antoine, with him to Geneva
(XXI. 125). Colladon (58) agrees, and informs us that Calvin left Du Tillet
at Basel, who from there went to Neuchatel. In his French Life of C., Beza
omits the journey to France: "A son retour d'ltalie . . . il passa a la bonne
heure par ceste ville de Geneve."

CHAPTER X.

CALVIN'S FIRST SOJOURN AND LABORS IN GENEVA.

1536-1538.

From 1536, and especially from 1541, we have, besides the works and letters
of Calvin and his correspondents and other contemporaries, important
sources of authentic information in the following documents : —

1. Eegistres du Conseil de Geneve, from 1536-1564. Tomes 29-58.

2. Registres des actes de bapteme et de marriage, preserved in the archives of

the city of Geneva.

3. Registres des actes du Consistoire de Geneve, of which Calvin was a perma

nent member.

4. Eegistres de la Venerable Compagnie, or the Ministerium of Geneva.

5. The Archives of Bern, Zurich, and Basel, of that period, especially those

of Bern, which stood in close connection with Geneva and exercised a
sort of protectorate over Church and State.

From these sources the Strassburg editors of Calvin's Works have carefully
compiled the Annales Calviniani, in vol. XXI. (or vol. XII. of Thesaurus
Epistolicus Calvinianus), 185-818 (published 1879). The same volume
contains also the biographies of Calvin by Beza (French and Latin) and
Colladon (French), the epitaphia, and a Notice litte'raire, 1-178.

J. H. ALBERT RILLIET : Le premier sejour de Calvin a Geneve. In his and
Duf our's ed. of Calvin's French Catechism. Geneva, 1878. — HENRY,
vol. I. chs. VIII. and IX. — DYER, ch. III. — STA HELIX, I. 122 sqq. —
KAMPSCHULTE, I. 278-320. — MERLE D'AUBIGNE, Bk. XI. chs. I.-XIV.

§ 81. Calvin's Arrival and Settlement at Greneva.

CALVIN arrived at Geneva in the later part of July, 1536, l
two months after the Reformation had been publicly intro
duced (May 21).

He intended to stop only a night, as he says, but Provi
dence had decreed otherwise. It was the decisive hour of his
life which turned the quiet scholar into an active reformer.

1 Not in August (as stated by Beza, Annal. 126, 203, and most biographers).
He went to Basel for two weeks (August 4-19), and returned to Geneva, accord
ing to promise, about the middle of August, for settlement. See his letter to
Daniel, Oct. 13, 1536, in Herminjard, IV. 87 ; comp. 77 note ; also Rilliet and
Roget, 347

348 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

His presence was made known to Farel through the impru
dent zeal of Du Tillet, who had come from Basel via Neu-
chatel, and remained in Geneva for more than a year. Farel
instinctively felt that the providential man had come who
was to complete and to save the Reformation of Geneva. He
at once called on Calvin and held him fast, as by divine com
mand. Calvin protested, pleading his youth, his inexperience,
his need of further study, his natural timidity and bashful-
ness, which unfitted him for public action. But all in vain.
Farel, "who burned of a marvellous zeal to advance the Gos
pel," threatened him with the curse of Almighty God if he
preferred his studies to the work of the Lord, and his own
interest to the cause of Christ. Calvin was terrified and
shaken by these words of the fearless evangelist, and felt " as
if God from on high had stretched out his hand." He sub
mitted, and accepted the call to the ministry, as teacher and
pastor of the evangelical Church of Geneva.1

It was an act of obedience, a sacrifice of his desires to a
sense of duty, of his will to the will of God.

Farel gave the Reformation to Geneva, and gave Calvin to
Geneva — two gifts by which he crowned his own work and
immortalized his name, as one of the greatest benefactors of
that city and of Reformed Christendom.

Calvin was foreordained for Geneva, and Geneva for Cal
vin. Both have made " their calling and election sure."

He found in the city on Lake Leman " a tottering republic,

1 Beza (Vita, XXI. 125) : "At ego tibi, inguit [FareUus'], studio, tua prcetex-
enti denuncio omnipotentis Dei nomine futurum ut, nisi in opus istud Domini nobis-
cum incumbas, tibi non tarn Christum quam te ipsum qucerenti Dominus maledicat.
Ilac terribili denunciation territus, Calvinus sese presbyterii et m a yi stratus volnntati
permisit, quorum suffragiis, accedente plebis consensu, delectus non concionator
tantinn (hoc antem primum recusarat), sed etiam sacrarum literarum doctor, quod
unum admittebat, est designatus anno Domini MDXXXVI. mense Axgusto." With
this should be compared Calvin's own account in the Preface to his commen
tary on the Psalms, and Ann. Calv. 203 sq. Merle d'Aubigne, at the close of
vol. V. 534-550, gives a dramatic description of Calvin's first arrival and
interview with Farel at Geneva, with some embellishments of his imagination.

§ 82. FIRST LABORS AND TRIALS. 349

a wavering faith, a nascent Church." He left it a Gibraltar
of Protestantism, a school of nations and churches.1

The city had then only about twelve thousand inhabitants,
but by her situation on the borders of France and Switzer
land, her recent deliverance from political and ecclesiastical
despotism, and her raw experiments in republican self-gov
ernment, she offered rare advantages for the solution of
the great social and religious problems which agitated
Europe.

Calvin's first labors in that city were an apparent failure.
The Genevese were not ready yet and expelled him, but after
a few years they recalled him. They might have expelled
him again and forever : for he was poor, feeble, and unpro
tected. But they gradually yielded to the moulding force of
his genius and character. Those who call him " the pope of
Geneva" involuntarily pay him the highest compliment.
His success was achieved by moral and spiritual means, and
stands almost alone in history.

§ 82. First Labors and Trials.

Calvin began his labors, Sept. 5, 1536, by a course of exposi
tory lectures on the Epistles of Paul and other books of the
New Testament, which he delivered in the Church of St.
Peter in the afternoon. They were heard with increasing
attention. He had a rare gift of teaching, and the people
were hungry for religious instruction.

After a short time he assumed also the office of pastor
'which he had at first declined.

The Council was asked by Farel to provide a suitable sup
port for their new minister, but they were slow to do it, not
dreaming that he would become the most distinguished citi-

1 Michelet has an eloquent chapter on the transformation of Geneva by
Calvin, who made it from a city of pleasure and commerce "a fabric of saints
and martyrs," a " ville ttonnante ou tout etait flamme et priere, lecture, travail, au-
sterite" (XI. 96).

350 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

zen, and calling him simply " that Frenchman." l He re
ceived little or no salary till Feb. 13, 1537, when the Council
voted him six gold crowns.2

Calvin accompanied Farel in October to the disputation at
Lausanne, which decided the Reformation in the Canton de
Vaud, but took little part in it, speaking only twice. Farel
was the senior pastor, twenty years older, and took the lead.
But with rare humility and simplicity he yielded very soon
to the superior genius of his young friend. He was contented
to have conquered the territory for the renewed Gospel, and
left it to him to cultivate the same and to bring order out
of the political and ecclesiastical chaos. He was willing to
decrease, that Calvin might increase. Calvin, on his part,
treated him always with affectionate regard and gratitude.
There was not a shadow of envy or jealousy between
them.

The third Reformed preacher was Courault, formerly an
Augustinian monk, who, like Calvin, had fled from France to
Basel, in 1534, and was called to Geneva to replace Viret.
Though very old and nearly blind, he showed as much zeal
and energy as his younger colleagues. Saunier, the rector of
the school, was an active sympathizer, and soon afterwards
Cordier, Calvin's beloved teacher, assumed the government
of the school and effectively aided the ministers in their
arduous work. Viret came occasionally from the neighboring
Lausanne. Calvin's brother, and his relative Olive tan, who
joined them at Geneva, increased his influence.

The infant Church of Geneva had the usual trouble with
the Anabaptists. Two of their preachers came from Holland
and gained some influence. But after an unfruitful disputa-

1 " Ille Gallus." Annal Calv. XXI. 204. The Registers were then kept in
Latin, but after 1537, in French. The native languages superseded the Latin
with the progress of the Reformation.

2 Under that date the Registres du Cons, report : " Icy est park' de CALVINUS
qu'il na encore guere re$eu et este arreste gue I'on luy delivre ung six esci^s soleil "
(Annal. 208).

§ 82. FIRST LABORS AND TRIALS. 351

tion they were banished by the large Council from the terri
tory of the city as early as March, 1537.1

A more serious trouble was created by Peter Caroli, a doc
tor of the Sorborme, an unprincipled, vain, and quarrelsome
theological adventurer and turncoat, who changed his religion
several times, led a disorderly life, and was ultimately recon
ciled to the pope and released from his concubine, as he
called his wife. He had fled from Paris to Geneva in 1535,
became pastor at Neuchatel, where he married, and then at
Lausanne. He raised the charge of Arianism against Farel
and Calvin at a synod in Lausanne, May, 1537,2 because they
avoided in the Confession the metaphysical terms Trinity and
Person, (though Calvin did use them in his Institutio and his
Catechism,) and because they refused, at Caroli's dictation,
to sign the Athanasian Creed with its damnatory clauses,
which are unjust and uncharitable. Calvin was incensed at
his arrogant and boisterous conduct and charged him with
atheism. " Caroli," he said, " quarrels with us about the
nature of God and the distinction of the persons ; but I carry
the matter further and ask him, whether he believes in the
Deity at all ? For I protest before God and man that he has
no more faith in the Divine Word than a dog or a pig that
tramples under foot holy things" (Matt. 7:6). This is the
first manifestation of his angry temper and of that contempt
uous tone which characterizes his polemical writings. He
handed in with his colleagues a confession on the Trinity.3

1 Ann. 208-210. " Conseil des Deux-cents (Lundi 19 Mars'). Fuit propositum
negotiant illorum Kataliapti star um surlesquelz a este advise que iceulx ettous aultres
de leur secte soi/ent perpetuellement bannys de ceste cite' et terres dicelle sus poenne
de la vye." They were asked to recant, but answered that their conscience
did not allow it, whereupon they were "perpetually banished."

2 The troubles with Caroli began in January, 1537; the synod convened
May 13. Opera, X. 82, sqq.; letter of Farel, p. 102, of Calvin, 107; Anna!.
207 and 211. Kampschulte (I. 296) gives a wrong date (March).

3 Confessio de Trinitate propter calumnias P. Caroli, signed by Farel, Calvin,
and Viret, and approved by Capito, Bucer, Myconius, and Grynaeus, in Opera,
IX. 703-710.

352 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

The synod after due consideration was satisfied with their
orthodoxy, and declared Caroli convicted of calumny and
unworthy of the ministry. He died in a hospital at Rome.1

§ 83. The Reformers introduce Order and Discipline.

Confession de la Foy laquelle tous les bourgeois et habitans de Geneve et subjectz
du pays dot/vent jurer de garder et tenir ; extraicte de I' instruction dont on
use en I'e'glise de la dicte ville, 1537. Confessio Fidei in quam jurare cives
omnes Genevenses et qui sub civitatis ejus ditione agunt, jussi sunt. The French
in Opera, vol. IX. 693-700 (and by Rilliet-Dufour, see below) ; the Latin
in vol. V. 355-362. See also vol. XXII. 5 sqq. (publ. 1880).

Le Catechisme de I'Eglise de Geneve, c'est a dire le Formulaire d'instruire les
enfans la Chre'tiente fait en maniere de dialogue ou le ministre interrogue et
I' enfant respond. The first edition of 1537 is not divided into questions
and answers, and bears the title Instruction et Confession de Foy dont on
use en I'Eglise de Geneve. A copy of it was discovered by H. BORDIER in
Paris and published by TH. DDFOUR, together with the first ed. of the
Confession de la Foy, at Geneva, 1878 (see below). A copy of a Latin
ed. of 1545 had been previously found in the Ducal library at Gotha.

Catechismus sive Christiance religionis institutio, communibus renatce nuper in
evangelio Genevensis ecclesice sujffraqiis recepta et vulgari quidem prius
idiomate, nunc vero Latine etiam in lucem edita, JOANNE CALVINO auctore.
The first draft, or Catechismus prior, was printed at Basel, 1538 (with a
Latin translation of the Confession of 1537). Reprinted in Opera in
both languages, vol. V. 313-364. The second or larger Catechism ap
peared in French, 1541, in Latin, 1545, etc. ; both reprinted in parallel
columns, Opera, vol. VI. 1-160.

(NiEMETER in his Coll. Conf. gives the Latin text of the larger Cat. together
with the prayers and liturgical forms; comp. his Proleg. XXXVII.-
XLI. BOCKEL in his Bekenntniss- Schriften der evang. Reform. Kirche gives
a German version of the larger Cat., 127-172. An English translation
was prepared by the Marian exiles, Geneva, 1556, and reprinted in DUN-
LOP'S Confessions, II. 139-272).

Calvin had a hand in nearly all the French and Helvetic confessions of his
age. See Opera, IX. 693-772.

* ALBERT RILLIET and THEOPHILE DUFOUR: Le Cate'chisme francais de Calvin
publie' en 1537, re'imprime' pour la premiere fois d'apres un exemplaire nou-
vellement retrouve", et suivi de la plus ancienne Confession de Foi de I'lZglise
de Geneve (avec un notice sur le premier se'jour de Calvin a Geneve, par

1 On the controversies with Caroli, see Beza, Vita, in Op. XXI. 126 sq. ;
Letters, Nos. 638, 640, 644, 645, 665, in the 4th. vol. of Herminjard ; Ruchat,
vol. T.; Henry, I. 253; II. 37, 182; III. Beil.,209; and Merle d'Aubigne', VI.
362 sqq.

§ 83. ORDER AND DISCIPLINE INTRODUCED. 353

ALBERT RILLIET, et une notice bibliographique sur le Cate'ckisme et la Confes
sion de Foi de Calvin, par THEOPHILE DUFOUR), Geneve (H. Georg.),
and Paris (Fischbacher), 1878, 16°. pp. CCLXXXVIII. and 146; reprinted
in Opera, XXII.

SCHAFF: Creeds of Christendom, I. 467 sqq. STAHELIN, I. 124 sqq.
KAMPSCHULTE, I. 284 sqq. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, VI. 328-357.

Geneva needed first of all a strong moral government on
the doctrinal basis of the evangelical Reformation. The
Genevese were a light-hearted, joyous people, fond of public
amusements, dancing, singing, masquerades, and revelries.
Reckless gambling, drunkenness, adultery, blasphemy, and
all sorts of vice abounded. Prostitution was sanctioned by
the authority of the State and superintended by a woman
called the Heine du bordel. The people were ignorant. The
priests had taken no pains to instruct them and had set them
a bad example. To remedy these evils, a Confession of Faith
and Discipline, and a popular Catechism were prepared, the
first by Farel as the senior pastor, with the aid of Calvin;1
the second by Calvin. Both were accepted and approved by
the Council in November, 1536. 2

The Confession of Faith consists of twenty-one articles in
which the chief doctrines of the evangelical faith are briefly
and clearly stated for the comprehension of the people. It
begins with the Word of God, as the rule of faith and prac
tice, and ends with the duty to the civil magistracy. The

1 Beza treats the Confession as a work of Calvin, but the Strassburg edi
tors defend the authorship of Farel. Opera, XXII. Suppl. col. 11-18. Beza says
(XXI. 126) : " Tune [i.e. after the disputation at Lausanne, 1536] edita est a
Calvino Christiance doctrince qucedam veluti formula, vixdum emergenti e papatus
sordibus Genevensi ecclesice accomodata. Addidit etiam Catechismum, non ilium in
qucestiones et responsiones distributum, quern nunc habemus, sed alium multo breviorem
prcecipua religionis capita complexum." But the Catechism appeared two months
before the Confession. " lam vero confessionem non sine ratione adjungendam
curavimus." Calv., Opera, V. 319. Rilliet, I.e. p. IX.: "La Conf. de Foy
n'a paru gue quelques mois plus tard." The Confession is an extract from the
Catechism, as the title says. Merle d'Aubigne (VI. 337) regards the con
fession as the joint work of Calvin and Farel.

2 Anna!., 206, "Nov. 10. La confession accepte'e. Vers la meme e'poque pre
miere edition du cate'chisme."

354 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

doctrine of predestination and reprobation is omitted, but it
is clearly taught that man is saved by the free grace of God
without any merit (Art. 10). The necessity of discipline by
admonition and excommunication for the conversion of the
sinner is asserted (Art. 19). This subject gave much trouble
in Geneva and other Swiss churches. The Confession pre
pared the way for fuller Reformed Confessions, as the Galli-
can, the Belgic, and the Second Helvetic. It was printed
and distributed in April, 1537, and read every Sunday from
the pulpits, to prepare the citizens for its adoption.1

Calvin's Catechism, which preceded the Confession, is an
extract from his Institutes, but passed through several trans
formations. On his return from Strassburg he re-wrote it
on a larger scale, and arranged it in questions and answers,
or in the form of a dialogue between the teacher and the
pupil. It was used for a long time in Reformed Churches
and schools, and served a good purpose in promoting an in
telligent piety and virtue by systematic biblical instruction.
It includes an exposition of the Creed, the Decalogue, and
the Lord's Prayer. It is much fuller than Luther's, but less
adapted for children. Beza says that it was translated into
German, English, Scotch, Belgic, Spanish, into Hebrew by
E. Tremellius, and " most elegantly " into Greek by H.
Stephanus. It furnished the basis and material for a num
ber of similar works, especially the Anglican (Nowell's),
the Palatinate (Heidelberg), and the Westminster Catechisms,
which gradually superseded it.

Calvin has been called " the father of popular education
and the inventor of free schools." 2 But he must share this
honor with Luther and

1 Reg. du Cons. 17 and 27 avril, 1537. It had been previously examined
and adopted in manuscript.

2 Among others by George Bancroft, in his Lit. and Hist. Miscellanies, p.
400 : " Calvin was the father of popular education, the inventor of the system
of free schools."

§ 83. ORDER AND DISCIPLINE INTRODUCED. 355

Besides the Confession and Catechism, the Reformed pas
tors (i.e. Farel, Calvin, and Courault) presented to the
Council a memorial concerning the future organization and
discipline of the Church of Geneva, recommending frequent
and solemn celebration of the Lord's Supper, at least once a
month, alternately in the three principal churches, singing
of Psalms, regular instruction of the yoiith, abolition of the
papal marriage laws, the maintenance of public order, and
the exclusion of unworthy communicants.1 They regarded
the apostolic custom of excommunication as necessary for the
protection of the purity of the Church, but as it had been
fearfully abused by the papal bishops, they requested the
Council to elect a number of reliable, godly, and irreproach
able citizens for the moral supervision of the different dis
tricts, and the exercise of discipline, in connection with the
ministers, by private and public admonition, and, in case of
stubborn disobedience, by excommunication from the privi
leges of church membership.

On Jan. 16, 1537, the Great Council of Two Hundred
issued a series of orders forbidding immoral habits, foolish
songs, gambling, the desecration of the Lord's Day, baptism
by midwives, and directing that the remaining idolatrous
images should be burned ; but nothing was said about excom
munication.2 This subject became a bone of contention
between the pastors and citizens and the cause of the expul
sion of the Reformers. The election of syndics, Feb. 5, was
favorable to them.

The ministers were incessantly active in preaching, cate
chising, and visiting all classes of the people. Five sermons

1 Memoire de Calvin et Farel sur I' organisation de I'e'glise de Geneve. In the
Registers of the Council, it is called " les articles donne's par Me G. Farel
et les aultres predicans." The document was recently brought to light by
Gaberel (Histoire de I'e'glise de Geneve, 1858, Tom. I. 102), reprinted in
Opera, vol. X. Part I. 6-14. A summary is given by Merle d'Aubigne, VI.
340 sqq.

2 Annul. Calv. 206 sq.

356 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

were preached every Sunday, two every week day, and were
well attended. The schools were flourishing, and public
morality was steadily rising. Saunier, in a school oration,
praised the goodly city of Geneva which now added to her
natural advantages of a magnificent site, a fertile country, a
lovely lake, fine streets and squares, the crowning glory of
the pure doctrine of the gospel. The magistrates showed a
willingness to assist in the maintenance of discipline. A gam
bler was placed in the pillory with a chain around his neck.
Three women were imprisoned for an improper head-dress.
Even Francois Bonivard, the famous patriot and prisoner of
Chillon, was frequently warned on account of his licentious
ness. Every open manifestation of sympathy with popery by
carrying a rosary, or cherishing a sacred relic, or observing a
saint's day, was liable to punishment. The fame of Geneva
went abroad and began to attract students and refugees.
Before the close of 1537 English Protestants came to Geneva
to " see Calvin and Farel." 1

On July 29, 1537, the Council of the Two Hundred ordered
all the citizens, male and female, to assent to the Confession
of Faith in the Church of St. Peter.2 It was done by a large
number. On Nov. 12, the Council even passed a measure to
banish all who would not take the oath.3

1 Bullinger's letter to Farel and Calvin, Nov. 1, 1537 (in the Simler collec
tion of Zurich), and in Op. X., Ft. I. 128, also in Herminjard, IV. 309. Bui-
linger recommends three worthy English students of the Bible, " Eliott, Buttler,
and Partridge," who had spent some time in Zurich. Bullinger had made the
acquaintance of Farel at the disputation in Bern, January, 1528, and of
Calvin in Basel, February, 1536.

2 Annul. 213: " De la confession: que I'on donne ordrefaire que tons les dizen-
niers ameneront leurs gens dizenne par dizzenne en I'e'glise S. Pierre et la leur seront
leuz les articles touchant la confession en dieu et seront interrogue's s'ils veulent cela
tenir; aussi sera faict le serment de fidelite a la ville." A dizennier is a tithing-
man, or headborough.

8 Annal. 216 from Reg. du Cons. Tom. 31, fol. 90. But the order could not
be executed. Not one from the rue des Allemands would subscribe to the
Confession. Even Saunier was opposed to the imposition of a personal
pledge.

§ 83. ORDER AND DISCIPLINE INTRODUCED. 357

The Confession was thus to be made the law of Church
and State. This is the first instance of a formal pledge to a
symbolical book by a whole people.

It was a glaring inconsistency that those who had just
shaken off the yoke of popery as an intolerable burden, should
subject their conscience and intellect to a human creed ; in
other words, substitute for the old Roman popery a modern
Protestant popery. Of course, they sincerely believed that
they had the infallible Word of God on their side ; but they
could not claim infallibility in its interpretation. The same
inconsistency and intolerance was repeated a hundred years
later on a much larger scale in the " Solemn League and
Covenant " of the Scotch Presbyterians and English Puritans
against popery and prelacy, and sanctioned in 1643 by the
Westminster Assembly of Divines which vainly attempted to
prescribe a creed, a Church polity, and a directory of worship
for three nations. But in those days neither Protestants
nor Catholics had any proper conception of religious tolera
tion, much less of religious liberty, as an inalienable right of
man. " The power of the magistrates ends where that of
conscience begins." God alone is the Lord of conscience.

The Calvinistic churches of modern times still require
subscription to the Westminster standards, but only from the
officers, and only in a qualified sense, as to substance of doc
trine ; while the members are admitted simply on profession
of faith in Christ as their Lord and Saviour.1

1 The Congregational or Independent and Baptist churches, however,
while they disown the authority of general confessions, and hold to the vol
untary principle, usually have local or congregational creeds and covenants
which must be assented to by all applicants for membership. In this respect
the Presbyterian churches are more liberal.

358 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

§ 84. Expulsion of the Reformers. 1538.

CALVIN'S correspondence from 1537 to 1538, in Op. vol. X., Pt. II. 137 sqq.

HERMINJARD, vols. IV. and V. — Annul. Calv., Op. XXI., fol. 215-235.
HENRY, I. ch. IX. — DYER, 78 sqq. — STAHELIN, 1. 151 sqq. — KAMPSCHDLTE, I.

296-319. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, Bk. XI. chs. XI.-XIV. (vol. VI. 469 sqq.).
C. A. CORNELIUS: Die Verbannung Calvins aus Genf. i.J. 1538. Miinchen,

1886.

The submission of the people of Geneva to such a severe
system of discipline was only temporary. Many had never
sworn to the Confession, notwithstanding the threat of pun
ishment, and among them were the most influential citizens of
the republic ; l others declared that they had been compelled
to perjure themselves. The impossibility of enforcing the law
brought the Council into contempt. Ami Porral, the leader
of the clerical party in the Council, was charged with arbi
trary conduct and disregard of the rights of the people. The
Patriots and Libertines who had hailed the Reformation in the
interest of political independence from the yoke of Savoy
and of the bishop, had no idea of becoming slaves of Farel,
and were jealous of the influence of foreigners. An intrigue
to annex Geneva to the kingdom of France increased the
suspicion. The Patriots organized themselves as a political
party and labored to overthrow the clerical regime. They
were aided in part by Bern, which was opposed to the tenet
of excommunication and to the radicalism of the Reformers.

There was another cause of dissatisfaction even among
the more moderate, which brought on the crisis. Farel in his
iconoclastic zeal had, before the arrival of Calvin, abolished
all holidays except Sunday, the baptismal fonts, and the
unleavened bread in the communion, all of which were
retained by the Reformed Church in Bern.2 A synod of
Lausanne, under the influence of Bern, recommended the

1 According to the testimony of Claude Rozet, the secretary of state.
He himself had not sworn the Confession, although he had read it publicly
and taken the oath of the citizens in St. Peter's, July 29, 1537.

2 Beza, in Calvin's Opera, XXI. 128.

§ 84. EXPULSION OF THE REFORMERS. 359

restoration of the old Bernese customs, as they were called.
The Council enforced this decision. Calvin himself regarded
such matters as in themselves indifferent, but would not for
sake his colleagues.

Stormy scenes took place in the general assembly of citi
zens, Nov. 15, 1537. In the popular elections on Feb. 3,
1538, the anti-clerical party succeeded in the election of four
syndics and a majority of the Council.1

The new rulers proceeded with caution. They appointed
neAV preachers for the country, which was much needed.
They prohibited indecent songs and broils in the streets,
and going out at night after nine. They took Bern foi
their model. They enforced the decision of the Council of
Lausanne concerning the Church festivals and baptismal
fonts.

But the preachers were determined to die rather than to
yield an inch. They continued to thunder against the pop
ular vices, and censured the Council for want of energy
in suppressing them. The result was that they were warned
not to meddle in politics (March 12). 2 Courauld, who sur
passed even Farel in vehemence, was forbidden to preach, but
ascended the pulpit again, April 7, denounced Geneva and
its citizens in a rude and insulting manner,3 was imprisoned,
and six days afterwards banished in spite of the energetic
protests of Calvin and Farel. The old man retired to Thonon,
on the lake of Geneva, was elected minister at Orbe, and
died there Oct. 4 in the same year.

Calvin and Farel were emboldened by this harsh treatment
of their colleague. They attacked the Council from the pulpit.

1 The new syndics, Claude Ilichardet, Jean Philippe, Jean Lullin, and Ami
de Chapeaurouge, were pronounced enemies of Farel and Viret. Ami Porral
was not re-elected. Grynseus of Basel wrote several letters of comfort and
encouragement to Farel and Calvin, Feb. 13, March 4, March 12, 1538. In
Herminjard, IV. 361, 379, 401.

2 Ann. 222, " de point se mesler du magistral."

3 He compared the state of Geneva with the kingdom of frogs, and the
Genevese with rats. Merle d'Aubigne, VI. 455.

360 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Even Calvin went so far as to denounce it as the Devil's
Council. Libels were circulated against the preachers. They
often heard the cry late in the evening, " To the Rhone with
the traitors," and in the night they were disturbed by violent
knocks at the door of their dwelling.

They were ordered to celebrate the approaching Easter
communion after the Bernese rite, but they refused to do so
in the prevailing state of debauchery and insubordination.
The Council could find no supplies. On Easter Sunday,
April 21, Calvin, after all, ascended the pulpit of St. Peter's ;
Farel, the pulpit of St. Gervais. They preached before large
audiences, but declared that they could not administer the
communion to the rebellious city, lest the sacrament be dese
crated. And indeed, under existing circumstances, the cele
bration of the love-feast of the Saviour would have been a
solemn mockery. Many hearers were armed, drew their
swords, and drowned the voice of the preachers, who left the
church and went home under the protection of their friends.
Calvin preached also in the evening in the Church of St.
Francis at Rive in the lower part of the city, and was threat
ened with violence.

The small Council met after the morning service in great
commotion and summoned the general Council. On the next
two days, April 22 and 23, the great Council of the Two
Hundred assembled in the cloisters of St. Peter's, deposed
Farel and Calvin, without a trial, and ordered them to leave
the city within three days.1

They received the news with great composure. " Very
well," said Calvin, " it is better to serve God than man. If
we had sought to please men, we should have been badly
rewarded, but we serve a higher Master, who will not with-

1 The same Council deposed Claude Rozet, the secretary of state, who, in
his official capacity, had recorded the oath of the people to the Confession of
Faith, July 29, 1537. Registers of April 23, 1538. Rozet, Chron. MS. de
Geneve, Bk. IV. ch. 18 (quoted by Merle d'Aubigne, VI. 485).

§ 84. EXPULSION OF THE REFORMERS. 361

hold from us his reward." l Calvin even rejoiced at the result
more than seemed proper.

The people celebrated the downfall of the clerical regime
with public rejoicings. The decrees of the synod of Lausanne
were published by sound of trumpets. The baptismal fonts
were re-erected, and the communion administered on the fol
lowing Sunday with unleavened bread.

The deposed ministers went to Bern, but found little sym
pathy. They proceeded to Zurich, where a general synod was
held, and were kindly received. They admitted that they
had been too rigid, and consented to the restoration of the
baptismal fonts, the unleavened bread (provided the bread
was broken), and the four Church festivals observed in Bern ;
but they insisted on the introduction of discipline, the divis-.
ion of the Church into parishes, the more frequent adminis
tration of the communion, the singing of Psalms in public
worship, and the exercise of discipline by joint committees of
laymen and ministers.2

Bullinger undertook to advocate this compromise before
Bern and Geneva. But the Genevese confirmed in general
assembly the sentence of banishment, May 26.

With gloomy prospects for the future, yet trusting in God,
who orders all things well, the exiled ministers travelled on
horseback in stormy weather to Basel. In crossing a torrent
swollen by the rains they were nearly swept away. In Basel
they were warmly received by sympathizing friends, especially
by Grynseus. Here they determined to wait for the call of
Providence. Farel, after a few weeks, in July, received and
accepted a call to Neuch&tel, his former seat of labor, on con
dition that he should have freedom to introduce his system of

1 Beza, Rozet, and the Registers all report this answer with slight varia
tions. FarePs answer to the messenger was : " Well and good ; it is from
God."

2 See the 14 Articles drawn up by Calvin and Farel, in Henry, I. Beilage, 8 ;
in Op. X., Part IT. 190-102, and in Herminjard, V. 3-6.

362 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

discipline. Calvin was induced, two months later, to leave
Basel for Strassburg.

It was during this crisis that Calvin's friend and travelling
companion, Louis du Tillet, who seems to have been of a mild
and peaceable disposition, lost faith in the success of the
Reformation. He left Geneva in August, 1537, for Strass
burg and Paris, and returned to the Roman Church. He
had relations in high standing who influenced him. His
brother, Jean du Tillet, was the famous registrar of the Par
liament of Paris; another brother became bishop of Sainte-
Brieux, afterwards of Meaux.1 He explained to Calvin his
conscientious scruples and reasons for the change. Calvin
regarded them as insufficient, and warned him earnestly, but
kindly and courteously. The separation was very painful to
both, but was relieved by mutual regard. Du Tillet even
offered to aid Calvin in his distressed condition after his ex
pulsion, but Calvin gratefully declined, writing from Strass
burg, Oct. 20, 1538 : " You have made me an offer for which
I cannot sufficiently thank you; neither am I so rude and
unmannerly as not to feel the unmerited kindness so deeply,
that even in declining to accept it, I can never adequately ex
press the obligation that I owe to you." As to their difference
of opinion, he appeals to the judgment of God to decide who
are the true schismatics, and concludes the letter with the
prayer: " May our Lord uphold and keep you in his holy pro
tection, so directing you that you decline not from his way."2

1 Herminjard, V. 107 (note 11) ; and p. 163.

2 See the correspondence in Herminjard, IV. 354-359 and 384-400 ; V. 103-
109; 161, 162; 186-200. Du Tillet writes under his now seigneur ial De Hault-
mont to Charles d'Espeville (Calvin). His last letter is dated Paris, Dec. 1,
1538, and closes with the desire to remain " always his friend and brother in
Christ." There is also an answer of Bucer to Du Tillet from Strassburg, Oct.
8, 1539 (in Herminjard, VI. 61-70), in which he refutes four objections
which Du Tillet had made against the Protestants, viz.: 1) that they seceded
from the Church of Christ ; 2) that they rejected good customs and observ
ances of the Church ; 3) that they spoiled the goods of the Church ; 4) that
they denied many true dogmas and introduced false dogmas.

CHAPTER XI.

CALVIN IN GERMANY. FROM 1538-1541.

§ 85. Calvin in Strassburg.

I. CALVIN'S correspondence from 1538-1541 in Opera, vols. X. and XI. ;

HERMINJARD, vols. V. and VI.; BONNET-CONSTABLE, vol. I. 53 sqq. —
BEZA: Vita Calv., in Op. XXI. 128 sq. — Ann. Calv., Op. XXL 226-285.
Contains extracts from the Archives du chapitre de St. Thomas de Stras
bourg.

II. ALF. ERICHSON : L'Eglise francaise de Strasbourg au XVI6 siecle, d'apres

des documents ine'dits. Strasb. 1885. Comp. also his other works on the
History of the Reformation in the Alsace. — C. A. CORNELIUS : Die Riick-
kehr Calvin's nach Genf. Miinchen, 1889. — E. DOUMERGUE (Prof, of the
Prot. Faculty of Montauban) : Essai sur I'histoire du Culte Re'forme princi-
palement au XIXe Siecle. Paris, 1890. Ch. L, Calvin a Strasbourg, treats of
the worship in the first French Reformed Church, the model of the
churches of France. — EDUARD STRICKER : Johannes Calvin als erster
Pfarrer der reformirten G-emeinde zu Strassburg. Nach urkundh'chen Quellen.
Strassburg (Heitz & Miindel), 1890 (65 pp.). In commemoration of the
centenary of the church edifice of the French Reformed congregation
(built in 1790) by its present pastor.

III. HENRY, I. ch. X. — STAHELIN, 1. 168-283. — KAMPSCHULTE, I. 320-368. —
MERLE D'AUBIGNE, Bk. XI. chs. XV.-XVII. (vol. VI. 543-609).

CALVIN felt so discouraged by his recent experience that
he was disinclined to assume another public office, and Cou-
rault approved of this purpose. He therefore refused the first
invitation of Bucer to come to Strassburg, the more so as his
friend Farel was not included. But he yielded at last to
repeated solicitations, mindful of the example of the prophet
Jonah. Farel gave his hearty assent.

Strassburg1 was since 1254 a free imperial city of Ger
many, famous for one of the finest Gothic cathedrals, large

1 Or Strasbourg in French. Argentoratum was a Roman military station
in the time of Augustus.

363

364 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

commerce, and literary enterprise. Some of the first editions
of the Bible were printed there. By its geographical situa
tion, a few miles west of the Upper Rhine, it formed a
connecting link between Germany, France, and Switzerland,
as also between Lutheranism and Zwinglianism. It offered
a hospitable home to a steady flow of persecuted Protestants
from France, who called Strassburg the New Jerusalem.
The citizens had accepted the Reformation in 1523 in the
spirit of evangelical union between the two leading types of
Protestantism. Bucer, Capito, Hedio, Niger, Matthias Zell,
Sturm, and others, labored there harmoniously together.
Strassburg was the Wittenberg of South-western Germany,
and in friendly alliance with Zurich and Geneva.

Martin Bucer, the chief Reformer of the city, was the
embodiment of a generous and comprehensive catholicity,
and gave it expression in the Tetrapolitan Confession, which
was presented at the diet of Augsburg in 1530.1 He after
wards brought about, in the same irenic spirit, the Witten
berg Concordia (1536), which was to harmonize the Lutheran
and Zwinglian theories on the Lord's Supper, but conceded
too much to Luther (even the participation of the body and
blood of Christ by unworthy communicants), and therefore
was rejected by Bullinger and the Swiss Churches. He
wrote to Bern in June, 1540, that next to Wittenberg no
city in Germany was so friendly to the gospel and so large-
hearted in spirit as Strassburg. He ended his labors in the
Anglican Church as professor of theology in the Univer
sity of Cambridge in 1551. Six years after his death his
body was dug up, chained upright to a stake and burned,
under Queen Mary ; but his tomb was rebuilt and his mem
ory honorably restored under Queen Elizabeth. His col
league Fagius shared the same fate.

The Ziirichers, in a letter to Calvin, call Strassburg " the

i See vol. VI. 571 and 718.

§ 85. CALVIN IN STRASSBURG. 365

Antioch of the Reformation " ; Capito, " the refuge of exiled
brethren " ; the Roman Catholic historian, Florimond de
Rsemond, "the retreat and rendez-vous of Lutherans and
Zwinglians under the control of Bucer, and the receptacle
of those that were banished from France." l Among the dis
tinguished early refugees from France were Francis Lambert,
Farel, Le Fdvre, Roussel, and Michel d'Arande. Unfortu
nately, Strassburg did not long occupy this noble position,
but became a battlefield of bitter sectarian strife and, for
some time, the home of a narrow Lutheran orthodoxy. The
city was conquered by Louis XIV. and annexed to Roman
Catholic France in 1681, to the detriment of her Protestant
character, but was reconquered by Emperor William I. and
incorporated with united Germany as the capital of Alsace
and Lorraine in 1870. The university was newly organized
and better equipped than ever before.2

Calvin arrived at Strassburg in the first days of Septem
ber, 1538.3 He spent there three years in useful labors.
He was received with open arms by Bucer, Capito, Hedio,
Sturm, and Niger, the leading men in the Church, and
appointed by the Council professor of theology, with a mod
erate salary. He soon felt at home, and in the next summer
bought the citizenship, and joined the guild of the tailors.4

1 " C'&tait le receptacle des bannis de la France." Hist, de la naissance de
I'hertsie, p. 838.

2 It will take some time before the irritating question of language and
nationality can be settled. When last in Strassburg, I asked, first, a shop
keeper whether the people speak more French or German, and received the
prompt and emphatic answer: "On parle toujours francais a Strasbourg."
The next person, in answer to the same question, replied : " Man spricht mehr
deutsch." At last, a market-woman told the truth: "Man spricht dietsch."
The Alsatian dialect prevails at home, the French in society, the high Ger
man in the university, among the government officials and soldiers.

3 Not at the end of September, as Stahelin has it. See Strieker, p. 11,
note, where he shows that Calvin preached his first sermon at Strassburg on
the 8th of September.

4 July 30, 1539. Some historians err in stating that the citizenship was
presented to him. See Strieker, 44, and Annal. XXI. fol. 250 : « Uff den

366 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

The sojourn of Calvin in this city was a fruitful epi
sode in his life, and an education for more successful work
in Geneva. His views were enlarged and deepened. He
gained valuable experience. He came in contact with the
Lutheran Church and its leaders. He learned to understand
and appreciate them, but was unfavorably impressed with
the want of discipline and the slavish dependence of the
clergy upon the secular rulers. He labored indefatigably
and successfully as professor, pastor, and author. He in
formed Farel (April 20, 1539) that, when the messenger
called for copy of his book (the second edition of the Insti
tutes), he had to read fifty pages, then to teach and to
preach, to write four letters, to adjust some quarrels, and
was interrupted by visitors more than ten times.1

It is in the fitness of things that three learned professors
of the University of Strassburg, who lived during the French
and German regime, and were equally at home in the language
and theology of both nations, should give to the world the
last and best edition of Calvin's works.

Calvin's economic condition during these three years was
very humble. It is a shame for the congregation and the
city government that they allowed such a man to struggle
for his daily bread. For the first five months he received no
pay at all, only free board in the house of a liberal friend.
His countrymen were poor, but might have done something.
He informed Farel, in April, 1539, that of his many friends
in France, not one had offered him a copper, except Louis
Du Tillet, who hoped to induce him to return. Hence he
declined.2 The city paid him a very meagre salary of fifty-

30 tag Julij Anno 39 ist Johannes Galvinus uff" unser Herren der statt Strasz-
burg Saal erschinnen, und sich angeben lut der Ordnung und ivill dienen mit den
schnydern"

1 Herminjard, V. 286 sq. ; Opera, X., Pars II. 337.

2 " Cum innumeros aliquando amicos in Gallia habuerim, nemo fuit qui assem
mihi obtulerit ; et tamen si fecissent, poterant frui gratuita beneficentice jactantia :
nihil enim illis constitisset offerre quod acceptassem. Exciderat mihi Ludovicus

§ 86. CHURCH OF THE STRANGERS IN STRASSBURG. 367

two guilders (about two hundred marks) for his professorial
duties from May, 1539.1 His books were not profitable.
When the Swiss heard of his embarrassment, they wished to
come to his aid, and Fabri sent ten ducats to Farel for
Calvin.2 But he preferred to sell his greatest treasure — the
library — which he had left in Geneva, and to take students
as boarders (pensionnaires). He trusted to God for the
future.3

With all his poverty he was happy in his independence, the
society of congenial friends, and his large field of usefulness.

§ 86. The Church of the Strangers in Strassburg.

Calvin combined the offices of pastor and professor of
theology in Strassburg, as he had done in Geneva. The
former activity kept him in contact with his French country
men ; the latter extended his influence among the scholars
in Germany.

[Du Tillet] ; ille unus fait qui obtulit ; sed ipse quoque suam largitionem nimis
magno venditabat : siquidem me tantum non ad recantandum hortabatur." Hermin-
jard, V. 291 sq. See the letter of Du Tillet from Paris, Oct. 20, 1538, in
which he offers him to furnish " assez a toute vostre necessite" (ibid. p. 107).

1 May 1, 1539 : " Joannes Calvinus so ein geldhrter frommer Gesell sein soil und
zu Zeiten auch in Theologia lese, zudem auch zu den Reuwern franzosisch predige,
haben die Herren . . . ist beschlossen dasz man demselben nuhn flirter ein Jar
lang die 52 fl. alsz ein zuhelffer geben und soil prima Maij angehen." From the
Thomas-Archiv, in Annal. fol. 246.

2 " Decem coronatos." Libertet (Christophe Fabri) to Farel, May 8, 1539,
in Herminjard, V. 307.

3 "It is very agreeable to me," he wrote to Farel, who had communicated
to his colleagues Calvin's wants, " I confess, that my brethren entertain such
a regard for me, that they are ready to supply my wants from their own
means. It could not be otherwise than that I must be greatly delighted with
such a testimony of their love (quin tali amoris testimonio delecter}. Neverthe
less, I have determined to abstain from putting both your kindness and theirs
in requisition, unless a greater necessity shall compel me. Wendelin [Wende-
lin Rihel], the printer, to whom I intrusted my book [the second edition of
the Institutio] to be printed, will provide me with as much as will be sufficient
for any extraordinary expenses. From my books which yet remain at Geneva,
there will be enough to satisfy my landlord till next winter. As to the future,
the Lord will provide." (Herminjard, I.e.}

368 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

He organized the first Protestant congregation of French
refugees, which served as a model for the Reformed Churches
of Geneva and France.

The number of refugees amounted at that time to about
four hundred.1 Most of them belonged to the " little French
Church." 2 His first sermon was delivered in the Church of
St. Nicholas, and attracted a large crowd of Frenchmen and
Germans.3 He preached four times a week (twice on Sun
day), and held Bible classes. He trained deacons to assist
him, especially in the care of the poor, whom he had much at
heart. The names of the first two were Nicholas Parent,
who afterwards became pastor at Neuchatel, and Claude de
Fer or Feray (Claudius Ferseus), a French Hellenist, who
had fled to Strassburg, taught Greek, and died of the pesti
lence in 1541, to the great grief of Calvin.

He introduced his favorite discipline, and as he was not
interfered with by the magistracy he had better success than
at Geneva during his first sojourn. "No house," he says,
" no society, can exist without order and discipline, much less
the Church." He laid as much stress upon it as Luther did
upon doctrine, and he regarded it as the best safeguard of
sound doctrine and Christian life. He excluded a student
who had neglected public worship for a month and fallen
into gross immorality, from the communion table, and would
not admit him till he professed repentance.4

1 A census of Strassburg, taken Oct. 18, 1553, enumerates one hundred
Frenchmen who were citizens, thirty-five who were not citizens, and sixteen
soldiers (in all 151 men), without including wives, children, and servants.
From this Strieker (p. 5) infers that the foreign population numbered four
hundred souls. Doumergue (I.e. p. 3) counts from five hundred to six hun
dred. Specklin (153G-1589), the author of a chronicle of Strassburg (edited
by Rud. Reuss, Strassb. 1890), gives a much larger number, namely, fifteen
hundred ; but he is not very accurate, and must be corrected by the official
census.

2 " Ecclesiola Gallicana," as Calvin calls it.

3 Afterwards he preached in the Klosterkirche der Reuerinnen, now called
the Magdalenen Kirche.

* Calvin to Farel, in Herminjard, V. 291.

§ 86. CHURCH OF THE STRANGERS IN STRASSBURG. 369

Not a few of the younger members, however, objected to ex
communication as a popish institution. But he distinguished
between the yoke of Christ and the tyranny of the pope. He
persevered and succeeded. " I have conflicts," he wrote to
Farel, " severe conflicts, but they are a good school for me."

He converted many Anabaptists, who were wisely tolerated
in the territory of Strassburg, and brought to him from the
city and country their children for baptism. He was con
sulted by the magistrates on all important questions touch
ing religion. He conscientiously attended to pastoral care,
and took a kindly interest in every member of his flock. In
this way he built up in a short time a prosperous church,
which commanded the respect and admiration of the commu
nity of Strassburg.1

Unfortunately, this Church of the Strangers lasted only
about twenty-five years, and was extinguished by the flames
of sectarian bigotry, though not till after many copies had
been made from it as a model. An exclusive Lutheranism,
under the lead of Marbach, obtained the ascendency in
Strassburg, and treated the Calvinistic Christians as danger
ous heretics. When Calvin passed through the city on his
way to Frankfort, in August, 1556, he was indeed honorably
received by John Sturm and the students, who respectfully
rose to their feet in his presence, but he was not allowed to
preach to his own congregation, because he did not believe in
the dogma of consubstantiation. A few years later the
Reformed worship was altogether forbidden by order of the
Council, Aug. 19, 1563.2

1 Kampschulte, I. 324, thus sums up Calvin's pastoral labors in Strassburg:
" Sfrassburg hatte in Kurzem eine bluhende wohlqeordnete franzosische Fiilchtlings-
yemeinde mit Predigt und Bibelstunden, mit regelmassiger Abend mahlsfeier und
Psalmengesang, insbesondere aber mit einer strenge gehandhabten Disciplin, und
nicht ohne Staunen erzdhlten die deutschen Pastoren bald einander von den Einricht-
ungen und dem merkwiirdigen Eifer der neuen Emigrantenkirche in Strassbiwg."

2 Strieker, pp. 11, 12, 64; Erichson, p. 65; Doumergue, p. 4; Calvin's
letter to Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1563 (Opera, X. 151). Under the French rule the
Reformed Church was reorganized in Strassburg.

370 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

§ 87. The Liturgy of Calvin.

I. La forme des prieres et chantzs ecclesiastiques, avec la maniere d'administrer les

sacremens et consacrer le marriage, selon la coutume de VEglise ancienne,
A.D. 1542. In Opera, VI. 161-210 (from a copy at Stuttgart; the title
is given in the old spelling without accents). Later editions (1543, 1545,
1562, etc.) add: "/a visitation des malades," and " comme on I"1 observe a
Geneve." An earlier edition of eighteen Psalms appeared at Strassburg,
1539. (See DOUEN, Clement Marot, I. 300 sqq.) An edition of the
liturgy with the Psalms was printed at Strassburg, Feb. 15, 1542. (See
DOUEN, I.e. 305, and 342 sqq.) A copy of an enlarged Strassburg ed. of
1545, entitled La forme des prieres et chantzs ecclesiastiques, was preserved
in the Public Library at Strassburg till Aug. 24, 1870, when it was burnt
at the siege of the city in the Franco-German War (DOUEN, I. 451 sq.).

II. CH. D'HERICAULT : Ouvres de Marot. Paris, 1867. — FELIX BOVET : His-
toire du psautier des e'glises reforme'es. Neuchatel, 1872. — O. DOUEN :
Clement Marot et le Psautier Huguenot. Etude historique, litteraire, musicale
et bibliographique ; contenant les melodies primitives des Psaumes, etc. Paris
(a I'imprimerie national), 1878 sq. 2 vols. royal 8vo. A magnificent work
published at the expense of the French Republic on the recommendation
of the Institute. The second volume contains the harmonies of Goudimel.

Farel published at Neuchatel in 1533, and introduced at
Geneva in 1537, the first French Reformed liturgy, which
includes, in the regular Sunday service, a general prayer, the
Lord's Prayer (before sermon), the Decalogue, confession of
sins, repetition of the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, a
final exhortation and benediction.1 It resembled the German
liturgy of Bern, which was published in 1529, and which
Calvin caused to be translated into French by his friend
Morelet.2 Of Farel's liturgy only the form of marriage sur
vived. The rest was reconstructed and improved by Calvin

1 Republished by Baum at Strassburg, 1859. Douen, I.e. I. 346.

2 In a letter to Gaspard Megander, an influential minister at Bern (prob
ably from Feb. 20, 1537), Calvin writes: (t Libellum tuum ceremonialem a
Mauro [Maurus Musseus, Morelet de Museau], rogatu nostro, versum, cum
nostro contulimus, a quo nihil penitus nisi brevitate differt" Herminjard (vol.
IV. 191) adds the following note: "La liturgie usitee dans Ve'glise genevoise
e'tait, selon toutes les vrai 'semblances, celle de Farel, publie'e a Neuchatel, le 29 aout
1533, sous le titre suivant: 'La Maniere et Fasson qu'on tient en baillant le sainct
baptesme . . . es lieux que Dieu de sa grace a visite's.' Nous avons constate' qne la
liturgie bernoise offre les plus grands rapports avec ' La Maniere et Fasson,' et
qu'elle en differe seulement par la brievete'."

§ 87. THE LITURGY OF CALVIN. 371

in the liturgy which he first introduced in Strassburg, and
with some modifications in Geneva after his return.

Calvin's liturgy was published twice in 1542. It was
introduced at Lausanne in the same year, and gradually
passed into other Reformed Churches.

Calvin built his form of worship on the foundation of
Zwingli and Farel, and the services already in use in the
Swiss Reformed Churches. Like his predecessors, he had
no sympathy whatever with the Roman Catholic ceremonial
ism, which was overloaded with unscriptural traditions and
superstitions. We may add that he had no taste for the
artistic, symbolical, and ornamental features in worship.
He rejected the mass, all the sacraments, except two, the
saints' days, nearly all church festivals, except Sunday, im
ages, relics, processions, and the whole pomp and circum
stance of a gaudy worship which appeals to the senses and
imagination rather than the intellect and the conscience, and
tends to distract the mind with the outward show instead
of concentrating it upon the contemplation of the saving
truth of the gospel.

He substituted in its place that simple and spiritual mode
of worship which is well adapted for intelligent devotion, if
it be animated by the quickening presence and power of the
Spirit of God, but becomes jejune, barren, cold, and chilly
if that power is wanting. He made the sermon the central
part of worship, and substituted instruction and edification
in the vernacular for the reading of the mass in Latin. He
magnified the pulpit, as the throne of the preacher, above the
altar of the sacrificing priest. He opened the inexhaustible
fountain of free prayer in public worship, with its endless
possibilities of application to varying circumstances and
wants; he restored to the Church, like Luther, the inesti
mable blessing of congregational singing, which is the true
popular liturgy, and more effective than the reading of writ
ten forms of prayer.

372 THE [REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

The order of public worship in Calvin's congregation at
Strassburg was as follows : —

The service began with an invocation,1 a confession of
sin and a brief absolution.2 Then followed reading of the
Scriptures, singing, and a free prayer. The whole congrega
tion, male and female, joined in chanting the Psalms, and
thus took an active part in public worship, while formerly
they were but passive listeners or spectators. This was in
accordance with the Protestant doctrine of the general priest
hood of believers.3 The sermon came next, and after it a

1 " Nostre aide soit au nom de Dieu, qui a faict le del et la terre. Amen."
Opera, VI. 173.

2 This confession is still in use and may be favorably compared with the
confession in the Anglican liturgy. It is as follows (in modern spelling) : —

" Mes freres, qu'un chacun de nous se pre'sente devant la face du Seigneur, avec
confession de sesf antes et pe'che's, suivant de son coeur mes paroles.

" Seigneur Dieu, Pere eternal et tout-puissant, nous confessons [et reconnaissonsj
sansfeintise, devant ta Sainte Majeste', que nous sommes pauvres pe'cheurs, conctts et
ne's en iniquite et corruption, enclins a malfaire, inutiles a tout bien, et que par notre
vice, nous transgressons sans Jin et sans cesse tes saints commandements. En quoi
faisant, nous acque'rons, par ton juste jug ement, mine et perdition sur nous.

" Toutefois, Seigneur, nous avons de'plaisir en nous-memes, de t'avoir offense', et
condamnons nous et nos vices, avec vraie repentance, de'sirant que ta grace [et aide]
subviennent a notre calamite'.

" Veuille done avoir pitie' de nous, Dieu et Pere tres btfnin, et plein de mise'ricorde,
au nom de ton Fils Je'sus-Christ, notre Seigneur ; effacant done nos vices et macules,
e'largis nous et augmente de jour en jour les graces de ton Saint-Esprit, afin
que, reconnaissant de tout notre coeur notre injustice, nous soyons touche's de de'plaisir,
qui engendre droite penitence en nous .• laquelle nous mortijiant a tons pe'che's pro-
duise en nous fruits de justice et innocence qui te soient agre'ables par ice-lui Je'sus-
Christ. Amen."

After this confession the Strassburg Liturgy adds a form of absolution,
which was afterwards omitted : —

" Id, dit le ministre quelques paroles de I'Ecriture pour consoler les consciences,
et fait I' absolution en cette maniere :

" Un chacun de vous se reconnaisse vraiment pe'cheur, s'humiliant devant Dieit,
et croieque le Pere ce'leste lui veut etre propice en Je'sus-Christ. A tous ceuoc qui, en
cetle maniere se repentent, et cherchent Je'sus-Christ pour leur salut, je de'nonce V 'abso
lution au nom du Pere, du Fils, et du Saint-Esprit. Amen."

3 In this respect Calvin followed the example of the Lutheran churches.
Gerard Roussel, who was one of the earliest refugees at Strassburg, reported
to Bri9onnet, bishop of Meaux, that the singing of Psalms, translated from
the Hebrew, was there a prominent feature of worship, and that " le chant des

§ 87. THE LITURGY OF CALVIN. 373

long general prayer and the Lord's Prayer. The service
closed with singing and the benediction.1

The same order is substantially observed in the French
Reformed Churches. Calvin prepared also liturgical forms
for baptism and the holy communion. A form for marriage
and the visitation of the sick had been previously composed
by Farel. The combination of the liturgical and extempora
neous features continue in the Reformed Churches of the
Continent. In the Presbyterian churches of Scotland and
most of the Dissenting churches of England, and their de
scendants in America, the liturgical element was gradually
ruled out by free prayer; while the Anglican Church pur
sued the opposite course.

Baptism was always performed before the congregation at
the close of the public service, and in the simplest manner,
according to the institution of Christ; without the traditional
ceremony of exorcism, and the use of salt, spittle, and burn
ing candles, because these are not commanded in the Scrip
tures, nourish superstition, and divert the attention from the
spiritual substance of the ordinance to outward forms. Cal
vin regarded immersion as the primitive form of baptism, but
pouring and sprinkling as equally valid.2

The communion was celebrated once a month in a simple

fe7nm.es, se melant a celui des homines, produit un effet ravissant." Herminjard,
I. 404-408. In another letter, he speaks also of the congregational chanting
of the Apostles' Creed and the Kyrie Eleison at the communion. Ibid. I. 411-
413. Doumergue, pp. 8, 9.

1 An interesting description of the Reformed worship at Strassburg, by a
French student in 1545, was first published in 1885 by Erichson, p. 7, and is
given by Doumergue, I.e. p. 15 sq. He speaks of daily preaching and chant
ing of Psalms by the whole congregation (" tant homme que femme avec un
bel accord") from a tune book (un livre de musique), which each member had
in his hand.

2 He says, Instil. IV. ch. XV. § 19 : " Whether the person who is baptized
be wholly immersed, and whether thrice or once, or whether water be only
poured or sprinkled upon him, is of no importance ; churches ought to be
left at liberty in this respect, to act according to the difference of countries.
The very word baptize, however, signifies to immerse; and it is certain that
immersion was the practice of the ancient Church."

374 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

but very solemn manner by the whole congregation. Calvin
required the communicants to give him previous notice of
their intention, that they might receive instruction, warning,
or comfort, according to their need. Unworthy applicants
were excluded.

The introduction of the Psalter in the vernacular was a
most important feature, and the beginning of a long and
heroic chapter in the history of worship and Christian life.
The Psalter occupies the same important place in the Re
formed Church as the hymnal in the Lutheran. It was the
source of comfort and strength to the Huguenot Church of
the Desert, and to the Presbyterian Covenanters of Scotland,
in the days of bitter trial and persecution. Calvin himself
prepared metrical versions of Psalms 25, 36, 43, 46,1 91, 113,
120, 138, 142, together with a metrical version of the Song
of Simeon and the Ten Commandments.2 He afterwards
used the superior version of Clement Marot, the greatest
French poet of that age, who was the poet of the court, and
the psalmist of the Church (1497-1544). Calvin met him
first at the court of the Duchess of Ferrara (1536), whither
he had fled, and afterwards at Geneva (1542), where he
encouraged him to continue his metrical translation of the
Psalms. Marot's Psalter first appeared at Paris, 1541, and
contained thirty Psalms, together with metrical versions of
the Lord's Prayer, the Angelic Salutation, the Creed, and the
Decalogue. Several editions, with fifty Psalms, were printed
at Geneva in 1543, one at Strassburg in 1545. Later editions
were enlarged with the translations of Beza. The popularity

1 The same Psalm furnished the key-note to Luther's immortal hymn,
" Einfeste Burg ist unser Gott." Calvin's version begins : —

" Nostre Dieu estferme appuy,

Vertue, fortresse et seur confort,
Auquel aurons en notre ennuy,
Present refuge et tres bon port."

2 They were printed at Strassburg, 1539, and republished, together with
an original hymn (Salutation a Jesus- Christ), from an edition of 1545, in
Opera, VI. 212-224.

§ 88. CALVIN AS THEOLOGICAL TEACHER. 375

and usefulness of his and Beza's Psalter were greatly en
hanced by the rich melodies of Claude Goudimel (1510-
1572), who joined the Reformed Church in 1562, and died
a martyr at Lyons in the night of the Massacre of St. Bar
tholomew. He devoted his musical genius to the Reforma
tion. His tunes are based in part on popular songs, and
breathe the simple and earnest spirit of the Reformed cultus.
Some of them have found a place among the chorals of the
Lutheran Church.

§ 88. Calvin as Theological Teacher and Author.

The Reformers of Strassburg, aided by leading laymen, as
Jacob Sturm and John Sturm, provided for better element
ary and higher education, and founded schools which
attracted pupils from France as early as 1525. Gerard
Roussel, one of the earliest of the refugees, speaks very
highly of them in a letter to the bishop of Meaux.1 A
Protestant college (gymnasium), with a theological depart
ment, was established March 22, 1538, and placed under the
direction of John Sturm, one of the ablest pedagogues of his
times. It was the nucleus of a university which continued
German down to the French Revolution, was then half French
ified, and is now again German in language and methods of
teaching. The first teachers in that college were Bucer for
the New Testament, Capito for the Old, Hedio for history
and theology, Herlin for mathematics, and Jacob Bedrot or
Pedrotus for Greek.2 A converted Jew taught Hebrew.

1 Herminjard, I. 407 ; also Farel in a letter of June 4, 1526, to Myconius,
ibid. 433 sq. On the schools in Strassburg see Roehrich, Geschichte der
Reformation im Elsass, I. 253, 261-264; A. G. Strobel, Histoire du Gymnase
protestant de Strasbourg, Strasb. 1838 ; Charles Schmidt, La vie et les travaux de
Jean Sturm, Strasb. 1855 (quoted by Herminjard) ; and R. Zopffel, Johann
Sturm, der erste Rektor der Strassburger Akademie, Strassburg, 1887.

2 Pedrotus (Padrut), whose name often occurs in Calvin's letters, was a
native of Pludenz in Vorarlberg, and famous as editor and expounder of
ancient classics, hence also called Jacobus Grcecus. Capito recommended

376 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Calvin was appointed assistant professor of theology in
January, 1539.1 He lectured on the Gospel of John, the
Epistle to the Romans, and other books of the Bible. Many
students came from Switzerland and France to hear him,
who afterwards returned as evangelists. He speaks of sev
eral students in his correspondence with satisfaction. In
some cases he was disappointed. He presided over public
disputations. He refuted in 1539 a certain Robertus Mosha-
mus, dean of Passau, in a disputation on the merits of good
works, and achieved a signal victory to the great delight
of the scholars of the city.2

But he had also an unpleasant dispute with that worthless
theological turncoat, Peter Caroli, who appeared at Strass-
burg in October, 1539, as a troubler in Israel, as he had done
before at Lausanne, and sought to prejudice even Bucer and
Capito against Calvin on the subject of the Trinity.3

With all his professional duties he found leisure for impor
tant literary work, which had been interrupted at Geneva.
He prepared a thorough revision of his Institutes, which
superseded the first, and a commentary on the Epistle to the
Romans, which opened the series of his invaluable exegetical
works. Both were published at Strassburg by the famous
printer Wendelin Rihel in 1539. He had been preceded, in
the commentary on Romans, by Melanchthon, Bucer, Bullin-
ger, but he easily surpassed them all. He also wrote, in
French, a popular treatise on the Lord's Supper, in which he

him very highly in a letter to Blaarer, Nov. 26, 1525, in Herminjard, I. 440,
note 16. He died of the pestilence at Strassburg, 1541.

1 Calvin to Farel, January, 1539 (Herminjard, V. 230) : " Nuper ad publi-
cam professionem invitus a Capitone protractus sum. Ita quotidie aut lego aut
concionor." He preached four times, and lectured three times. The salary of
52 guilders for one year was to commence the first of May. It is mentioned
in Annal. 246, by Herminjard, V. 231, note 19, and by Strieker, 22.

2 He defeated him again at Worms in the presence of Melanchthon.
Jacob Sturm, Antipappi, as quoted in Herminjard, VII. 26, note 6.

3 " Ter desertor, ter transfuga, ter proditor utriusque partis," rie is called by
Calvin. See on this unimportant episode Strieker, pp. 30-39.

§ 89. CALVIN AT THE COLLOQUIES. 377

pointed out a via media between the realism of Luther and
the spiritualism of Zwingli. Both parties, he says towards
the close, have failed and departed from the truth in their
passionate zeal, but this should not blind us to the great
benefits which God through Luther and Zwingli has be
stowed upon mankind. If we are not ungrateful and for
getful of what we owe to them, we shall be well able to
pardon that and much more, without blaming them. We
must hope for a reconciliation of the two parties.

At the Diet of Regensburg in 1541 he had, with the other
Protestant delegates, to subscribe the Augsburg Confession.
He could do so honestly, understanding it, as he said ex
pressly, in the sense of the author who, in the year before,
had published a revised edition with an important change in
the 10th Article (on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper).1

Of his masterly answer to Sadolet we shall speak sepa
rately.

His many letters from that period prove his constant and
faithful attention to the duties of friendship. In his letters
to Farel he pours out his heart, and makes him partaker of
his troubles and joys, and familiar with public events and
private affairs even to little details. Farel could not stand a
long separation and paid him two brief visits in 1539 and 1540.

§ 89. Calvin at the Colloquies of Frankfurt, Worms, and
Regensburg.

CALVIN: Letters from Worms, Regensburg, and Strassburg, in Opera, XI. ,
and Herminjard, vols. VI. and VII. His report on the Diet at Regens
burg (Zes Actes de la journee irnpe'riale en la cite' de Reyenspourg\ in Opera,
V. 509-684. — MELANCHTHON : Report on the Colloquy at Worms, in
Latin, and the Acts of the Colloquy at Regensburg, in German, 1542.

1 Calvin's letter to Martin Schalling, a minister at Regensburg, March,
1557, in Opera, XVI. 430 : " Nee vero Angustanam Confessionem repudio, cui
pridem volens ac libens subscripsi sicut earn aittor ipse interpretatus est." His
colleagues, Bucer and Capito, understood the Augsburg Confession in the
same irenic spirit.

378 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

See his Epistohe, ed. Bretschneider, IV. 33-78, and pp. 728 sqq. — STURM :
Antipappm, — SLEIDAN : De Statu Eccles. et Reipublicce Carolo V. Caesare,
Lib. XIII.

HENRY, vol. I. ch. XVII. — DYER, pp. 105 sqq. — STAHELIN, I. 229-254.—
KA.MPSCHULTE, I. 328-342. — STRICKER, pp. 27 sqq. — LUDWIG PASTOR
(Rom. Cath.) : Die kirchlichen Reunionsbestrebungen wdhrend der Regierung
Karls V. Aits den Quellen dargestellt. Freiburg-i.-B., 1879 (507 pp.)« He
notices Calvin's influence, pp. 194, 196, 212, 230, 245, 258, 266, 484, but
apparently without having read his correspondence, which is one of the
chief sources ; he only refers to Kampschulte.

Calvin was employed, with Bucer, Capito, and Sturm, as
one of the commissioners of the city and Church of Strass-
burg, on several public colloquies, which were held during
his sojourn in Germany for the healing of the split caused
by the Reformation. The emperor Charles V. was anxious,
from political motives, to reconcile the Protestant princes to
the Roman Church, and to secure their aid against the Turks.
The leading theological spirits in these conferences were
Melanchthon on the Lutheran, and Julius Pflug on the
Roman Catholic side. They aimed to secure the reunion of
the Church by mutual concessions on minor differences of
doctrine and discipline. But the conferences shared the fate
of all compromises. Luther and Calvin would not yield an
inch to the pope, while the extreme men of the papal party,
like Eck, were as unwilling to make any concession to Prot
estantism. A fuller account belongs to the ecclesiastical
history of Germany.

Calvin, being a foreigner and a Frenchman, ignorant of
the German language, acted a subordinate part, though he
commanded the respect of both parties for his ability and
learning, in which he was not inferior to any. Having no
faith in compromises, or in the sincerity of the emperor, he
helped to defeat rather than to promote the pacific object
of these conferences. He favored an alliance between the
Lutheran princes of the Smalkaldian League with Francis I.,
who, as the rival of Charles V., was inclined to such an alli
ance. He was encouraged in this line of policy by Queen

§ 89. CALVIN AT THE COLLOQUIES. 879

Marguerite, who corresponded with him at that time through
his friend Sleidan, the statesman and historian.1 He did
succeed in securing, after repeated efforts, a petition of the
Lutheran princes assembled at Regensburg to the French
king in behalf of the persecuted Protestants in France (May
23, 1541). 2 But he had no more confidence in Francis I. than
in Charles V. " The king," he wrote to Farel (September,
1540), "and the emperor, while contending in cruel persecu
tion of the godly, both endeavor to gain the favor of the
Roman idol." 3 He placed his trust in God, and in a close
alliance of the Lutheran princes among themselves and with
the Protestants in France and Switzerland.

He was a shrewd observer of the religious and political
movements, and judged correctly of the situation and the
principal actors. Nothing escaped his attention. He kept
Farel at Neuchatel informed even about minor incidents.

Calvin attended the first Colloquy at Frankfurt in Feb
ruary, 1539, in a private capacity, for the purpose of making
the personal acquaintance of Melanchthon and pleading the
cause of his persecuted brethren in France, whom he had
more at heart than German politics.

The Colloquy was prorogued to Hagenau in June, 1540,
but did not get over the preliminaries.

A more important Colloquy was held at Worms in Novem
ber of the same year. In that ancient city Luther had made
his ever memorable declaration in favor of the liberty of con
science, which in spite of the pope's protest had become an
irrepressible power. Calvin appeared at this time in the

1 Herminjard, VII. 198 sqq. ; Opera, XL 62 sqq.

2 Herminjard, VII. 126-128 ; Opera, XL Ep. 311, p. 220. Comp. Epp. 302,
307, 309. Calvin was not satisfied with the success. " Quantum ad fratres
attinet," he wrote to Farel (July 6, 1541), " qui ob evangelium laborant, non fed
quod volui." Melanchthon incurred the displeasure of the emperor for favor
ing the French Protestants. Herminjard, VII. 179, note 16.

3 " Nihil hie novi audimus, nisi quod Rex et Cwsar, certatim in pios s&viendo,
idolum Romanum sibi demereri student." Herminjard, VI. 315, comp. note 8.

380 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

capacity of a commissioner both of Strassburg and the dukes
of Liineburg. He went reluctantly, being just then in ill
health and feeling unequal to the task. But he gathered
strength on the spot, and braced up the courage of Melanch-
thon who, as the spokesman of the Lutheran theologians,
showed less disposition to yield than on former occasions.
He took a prominent part in the discussion. He defeated
Dean Robert Mosham of Passau in a second disputation, and
earned on that occasion from Melanchthon, and the Lutheran
theologians who were present, the distinctive title "the
Theologian " by eminence.1

He also wrote at Worms, for his private solace, not for
publication, an epic poem in sixty-one distichs (one hundred
and twenty-two lines), which celebrates the triumph of Christ
and the defeat of his enemies (Eck, Cochlseus, Nausea, Pelar-
gus) after their apparent and temporary victory.2 He was not
a poetic genius, but by study he made up the defects of nature.3

1 Beza (Opera, vol. XXI. 130) : " Calvinus . . . Domino Philippo Melanch-
thoni et Gaspari Crucigero beatcc memorice imprimis gratus, adeo ut eum ille scepe
* Theologum ' cognominaverit, hie vero privatum de coena cum eo colloquium habuerit
eiusque cognitam sententiam diserte comprobarit." The Report of the Strass-
burger Kirchenordnung, II. 140, as quoted by Strieker (p. 28, note), says :
" Auff welchem Colloquio auch Philippus \_Melanchthon~\, Cruciger und anderefur-
neme Theologi Kundtschafft mit Calvino gemacht, dass sie ihn, per Excellentiam,
'den Theologum' genannt." Papire Masson (in Vita Calv., as quoted by
Herminjard, VII. 26) : " Wormatiam missus a civibus excercuit excellentis ingenii
vires tanto applausu theologorum Germanice, utjudicio Melanchthonis et reliquorum
singulars privilegio THEOLOGI cognomen adeptus sit." A theologian in that emi
nently theological age meant a great deal more than a doctor of divinity now
adays.

2 Epinicion ad Christum, in Opera, V. 423-428. Dyer (p. 106), Kampschulte
(I. 333), Henry (I. ch. XVIII), and even Merle d'Aubigne (VII. 23), were
mistaken in calling this Song of Victory the only poem of Calvin (I. 333).
He wrote also metrical versions of a number of Psalms, and a lyric hymn to
Christ. See Opera, VI. 212-224.

3 As he says himself in the concluding lines : —

" Quod natura negat, studii pius efflcit ardor,
Ut coner laudes, Christe, sonar e tuas."

He gave the manuscript to a few friends, but did not permit it to be printed
till the court of Toulouse, four years afterwards, put the poem in the list of

§ 89. CALVIN AT THE COLLOQUIES. 381

The Colloquy of Worms, after having hardly begun, was
broken off in January, 1541, to be resumed at the approach
ing Diet of Regensburg (Ratisbon) in presence of the emperor
on his return.

The Diet at Regensburg was opened April 5, 1541. Cal
vin appeared again as a delegate of Strassburg and at the
special request of Melanchthon, but reluctantly and with
little hope of success. He felt that he was ill suited for
such work, and would only waste time.1 After long and
vexatious delays in the arrival of the deputies, the theologi
cal Colloquy was opened and conducted on the Roman Cath
olic side by Dr. John Eck, professor at Ingolstadt (who had
disputed with Luther at Leipzig and promulgated the papal
bull of excommunication), Julius Pflug, canon of Mainz
(afterwards bishop of Naumburg), and John Gropper, canon
and professor of canon law at Cologne ; on the Protestant
side by Melanchthon of Wittenberg, Bucer of Strassburg,
and Pistorius of Nidda in Hesse. Granvella presided in the
name of the emperor; Cardinal Contarini, an enlightened
and well-disposed prelate, who was inclined to evangelical
views and favored a moderate reformation, acted as legate
of Pope Paul III., who sent, however, at the same time
the intolerant Bishop Morone as a special nuncio. Calvin
could see no difference between the two legates, except that
Morone would like to subdue the Protestants with bloodshed,
Contarini without bloodshed. He was urged to seek an
interview with Contarini, but refused. He speaks favorably
of Pflug and Gropper, but contemptuously of Eck, the sten-

forbidden books, and caused many inquiries after it. Otherwise he would
have allowed it to be forgotten. See his preface in Opera, V. 422.

1 " Invitissimus" he wrote to Farel (Feb. 19, 1541, in Herminjard, VII. 26),
" Ratisponam trahor : turn quia ipsam profectionem mihi molestissimam prospicio
fore : turn quod valde timeo ne diuturna mora futura sit, ut solent scepe numero
comitia ad decimum mensem producere : turn quod minime idoneus mihi ad tales
actiones videor, quidquid alii judicent. Sed Deum sequar, qui novit cur mihi hanc
necessitatem imponat."

382 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

torian mouthpiece of the papal party, whom he regarded as
an impudent babbler and vain sophist.1 The French king
was represented by Du Veil, whom Calvin, calls a ubusy
blockhead." There were present also a good many bishops,
the princes of the German States, and delegates of the impe
rial cities. The emperor, in an earnest speech, exhorted the
divines, through an interpreter, to lay aside private feelings
and to study only the truth, the glory of God, the good of
the Church, and the peace of the empire.

The Colloquy passed slightly over the doctrines of original
sin and the slavery of the will, where the Protestants were
protected by the authority of St. Augustin. The Catholics
agreed to the evangelical view of justification by faith (with
out the Lutheran sola), and conceded the eucharistic cup to
the laity, but the parties split on the doctrine of the power
of the Church and the real presence. Calvin was especially
consulted on the last point, and gave a decided judgment in
Latin against transubstantiation, which he rejected as a scho
lastic fiction, and against the adoration of the wafer which he
declared to be idolatrous.2 He was displeased with the sub-
missiveness of Melanchthon and Bucer, although he did not
doubt the sincerity of their motives. He loved truth and con
sistency more than peace and unity. " Philip," he wrote to

1 See his judgment of these persons in the letter to Farel, April 24, 1541,
in Herminjard, VII. 89. Of Eck he says: " Nemini dubium est quin Davus
ille [referring to the impudent slave in the ancient drama] sua importunitate
sit omnia tnrbaturus." In a letter of May 12 he reports that Eck was struck
by apoplexy (May 10), but recovered, adding: "Nondnm meretur mundus ista
bestia liberari." (Herminjard, VII. 115 sq.) Eck died Feb. 16, 1543. Franz
Burckhard, the Saxon Chancellor, gave, in a letter to Pontanus, April 22, 1541,
a similar estimate of Pflug, Gropper, and Eck, and calls the last an " ebrius
sophista, qui pluris facit Bacchum quam ullam religionem " (Mel. Epist. IV. 185).
Mosellanus described Eck, as he appeared at the disputation in Leipzig, as
" a big-bodied, broad-shouldered, stout-hearted, and impudent man, who
looked more like a town-crier than a theologian." Melanchthon thought that
" no pious person could listen without disgust to the sophisms and vain sub
tleties of that talking mountebank."

2 Calvin to Farel, May 11, 1541, in Herminjard, VII. Ill sq.

§ 89. CALVIN AT THE COLLOQUIES. 383

Farel (May 12, 1541),1 " and Bucer have drawn up ambigu
ous and varnished formulas concerning transubstantiation, to
try whether they could satisfy the opposite party by giving
them nothing.2 I cannot agree to this device, although they
have reasonable grounds for doing so ; for they hope that in
a short time they would begin to see more clearly if the mat
ter of doctrine be left open ; therefore they rather wish to
skip over it, and do not dread that equivocation (flexiloqua-
tion) than which nothing can be more hurtful. I can assure
you, however, that both are animated with the best intentions,
and have no other object in view than to promote the king
dom of Christ; only in their method of proceeding they
accommodate themselves too much to the times. . . . These
things I deplore in private to yourself, my dear Farel ; see,
therefore, that they are not made public. One thing I am
thankful for, that there is no one who is fighting now more
earnestly against the wafer-god,3 as he calls it, than Brentz." 4

All the negotiations failed at last by the combined opposi
tion of the extreme men of both parties.5

The emperor closed the Diet on the 28th of July, and
promised to use his influence with the pope to convene a
General Council for the settlement of the theological ques
tions.6

Calvin had left Regensburg as soon as he found a chance,

1 Herminjard, VII. 115.

2 These formulas are printed in Melanchthon's Epistolce, IV. 262-264.

3 Or, in-breaded God, impanatus Deus.

4 The leading Lutheran divine of Wiirttemberg, who attended the Col
loquy.

5 The popular wit described the failure of the Colloquy in the line : " Sle
pflugm (Pflug, Plough), eggen (Eck), graben (Grobber), putzen (Bucer or
Butzer), und backen (Pistorius, whose German name was Becker), und richten
nichts cms." Corp. Reform. IV. 335.

6 Calvin wrote to Viret from Strassburg, Aug. 13, 1541 (Herminjard, VII.
218) : ''Finis comitiorum tali s fait qualem ego fore semper divinavi. Tota enim
pacificationis actio in fumum abiit, cum ad concilium universale rejecta est, vel
saltern nationale, si illud brevi obtineri nequeat. Quid enim hoc aliud est quam
frustrari ? "

384 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

about the middle of June, much to the regret of Bucer and
Melanchthon, who wished to retain him.1

His sojourn there was embittered by the ravages of the
pestilence in Strassburg, which carried away his beloved
deacon, Claude F£ray (Ferseus), his friends Bedrotus and
Capito, one of his boarders, Louis de Richebourg (Claude's
pupil), and the sons of CEcolampadius, Zwingli, and Hedio.
He was thrown into a state of extreme anxiety and depres
sion, which he revealed to Farel in a melancholy letter of
March 29, 1541.2 "My dear friend Claude, whom I sin
gularly esteemed," he writes, "has been carried off by the
plague. Louis (de Richebourg) followed three days after
wards. My house was in a state of sad desolation. My
brother (Antoine) had gone with Charles (de Richebourg)
to a neighboring village ; my wife had betaken herself to
my brother's ; and the youngest of Claude's scholars [proba
bly Malherbe of Normandy] is lying sick in bed. To the
bitterness of grief there was added a very anxious concern
for those who survived. Day and night my wife is con
stantly present to my thoughts, in need of advice, seeing that
she is deprived of her husband.3 . . . These events have
produced in me so much sadness that it seems as if they
would utterly upset the mind and depress the spirit. You
cannot believe the grief which consumes me on account of
the death of my dear friend Claude." Then he pays a touch
ing tribute to Feray, who had lived in his house and stuck
closer to him than a brother. But the most precious fruit
of this sore affliction is his letter of comfort to the distressed
father of Louis de Richebourg, which we shall quote in
another connection.4

1 Letter to Farel from Strassburg, early in July, 1541, in Herminjard,
VII. 176. He gives in this letter an account of the later disputes at Regens»
burg on confession and absolution, the invocation of saints, and the primacy
of the pope.

2 Herminjard, VII. 55 sqq.; Opera, XI. 174 sqq.

3 " Mihi dies ac nodes animo obversatur uxor, consilii inops, quia capite suo caret.*

4 See below, § 92, p. 421.

§ 90. CALVIN AND MELANCHTHON. 385

§ 90. Calvin and Melanchthon.

The correspondence between CALVIN (14 letters) and Melanchthon (8 letters),
and several letters of CALVIN to FAREL from Strassburg and Regensburg.

HENRY, vol. I. chs. XII. and XVII.— STAHELIN, I. 237-254. — MERLE o'Au-
BIGNE, bk. XI. ch. XIX. (vol. VII. 18-22, in Gates' translation).

One of the important advantages which his sojourn at
Strassburg brought to Calvin and to the evangelical Church
was his friendship with Melanchthon. It has a typical sig
nificance for the relationship of the Lutheran and Reformed
Confessions, and therefore deserves special consideration.

They became first acquainted by correspondence through
Bucer in October, 1538. Melanchthon brought Calvin at
once into a friendly contact with Luther, who read with
great pleasure Calvin's answer to Sadolet (perhaps also his
Institutes), and sent his salutations to him at Strassburg.1

Luther never saw Calvin, and probably knew little or
nothing of the Reformation in Geneva. His own work was
then nearly finished, and he was longing for rest. It is very
fortunate, however, that while his mind was incurably poi
soned against Zwingli and Zurich, he never came into hostile
conflict with Calvin and Geneva, but sent him before his
departure a fraternal greeting from a respectful distance.
His conduct foreshadows the attitute of the Lutheran Church
and theology towards Calvin, who had the highest regard for
Luther, and enjoyed in turn the esteem of Lutheran divines
in proportion as he was known.

1 In a letter to Bucer, Oct. 14, 1539 : " Salutabis Dn. Joannem Sturmium
et Joannem Calvinum reverenter, quorum libellos cum singulari voluptate legi.
Sadoleto optarem ut crederet Deum esse creatorem hominum extra Italiam." De
Wette, V. 211 ; and Herminjard, VI. 73 (comp. note 6). Calvin refers to this
compliment in a letter to Farel, Nov. 20, 1539 (in Herminjard, VI. 130). He
also quotes, from a lost letter of Melanchthon, the words: " Luther us et Pom-
eranus [Bugenhagen] Calvinum et Sturmium fusserunt salutari. Cah'inns mag-
nam gratiam iniit." (Ibid. p. 131.) Luther is reported to have expressed also
a favorable judgment on Calvin's tract on the Lord's Supper, published at
Strassburg, 1541, in French. See vol. VI. 660.

886 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Melanchthon was twelve years older than Calvin, as
Luther was thirteen years older than Melanchthon. Calvin,
therefore, might have sustained to Melanchthon the relation
of a pupil to a teacher. He sought his friendship, and he
always treated him with reverential affection.1 In the dedi
cation of his commentary on Daniel, he describes Melanchthon
as " a man who, on account of his incomparable skill in the
most excellent branches of knowledge, his piety, and other
virtues, is worthy of the admiration of all ages." But while
Melanchthon was under the overawing influence of the per
sonality of Luther, the Reformer of Geneva was quite inde
pendent of Melanchthon, and so far could meet him on equal
terms. Melanchthon, in sincere humility and utter freedom
from jealousy, even acknowledged the superiority of his
younger friend as a theologian and disciplinarian, and called
him emphatically " the theologian."

They had many points of contact. Both were men of un
common precocity; both excelled, above their contemporaries,
in humanistic culture and polished style ; both devoted all
their learning to the renovation of the Church; they were
equally conscientious and unselfish ; they agreed in the root
of their piety, and in all essential doctrines ; they deplored
the divisions in the Protestant ranks, and heartily desired
unity and harmony consistent with truth.

But they were differently constituted. Melanchthon was
modest, gentle, sensitive, feminine, irenic, elastic, temporiz
ing, always open to new light ; Calvin, though by nature
as modest, bashful, and irritable, was in principle and con
viction firm, unyielding, fearless of consequences, and opposed
to all compromises. They differed also on minor points of
doctrine and discipline. Melanchthon, from a conscientious
love of truth and peace, and from regard for the demands of

1 In a letter of 11 Cal. Mali, 1544 (Opera, XI. 698), he addresses him as " or-
natissime vir, Jldelissime Christi minister, et amice mihi semper honorande. Domi-
nus te semper spiritu suo regat, diuque nobis et ecclesice suce incolumem conserved"

§ 90. CALVIN AND MELANCHTHON. 387

practical common sense, had independently changed his
views on two important doctrines. He abandoned the Lu
theran dogma of a corporal and ubiquitous presence in the
eucharist, and approached the theory of Calvin ; and he sub
stituted for his earlier fatalistic view of a divine foreordina-
tion of evil as well as good the synergistic scheme which
ascribes conversion to the co-operation of three causes : the
Spirit of God, the Word of God, and the will of man. He
conceded to man the freedom of either accepting or rejecting
the Gospel salvation, yet without giving any merit to him
for accepting the free gift ; and on this point he dissented
from Calvin's more rigorous and logical system.1

The sincere and lasting friendship of these two great and
good men is therefore all the more remarkable and valuable
as a testimony that a deep spiritual union and harmony may
co-exist with theological differences.2

Calvin and Melanchthon met at Frankfurt, Worms, and
Regensburg under trying circumstances. Melanchthon felt
discouraged about the prospects of Protestantism. He de
plored the confusion which followed the abolition of the
episcopal supervision, the want of discipline, the rapacity of
the princes, the bigotry of the theologians. He had allowed
himself, with Luther and Bucer, to give his conditional assent
to the scandalous bigamy of Philip of Hesse (May, 1540),
which was the darkest blot in the history of the German
Reformation, and worse than the successive polygamy of
Henry VIII. His conscience was so much troubled about
his own weakness that, at Weimar, on his way to the Collo
quies at Hagenau and Worms, he was brought to the brink

1 On these changes see the biographies of Melanchthon by Galle, Carl
Schmidt, and Herrlinger; Gieseler's Church History; and Schaff's Creeds of
Christendom, I. 261 sqq.

2 Merle d' Aubigne (VII. 19) thinks that " esteem was uppermost in Me
lanchthon, and affection in Calvin " ; that " on the one side the friendship was
founded more on reflection (reflechi} , on the other it was more spontaneous";
but " on both sides it was the product of their noble and beautiful qualities."

388 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

of the grave, and would have died if Luther had not prayed
him out of the jaws of the king of terrors. What a contrast
between Melanchthon at Worms in 1540, and Luther at
Worms in 1521 ! At the Diet of Regensburg, in 1541, he
felt no better. His son was sick, and he dreamed that he had
died. He read disaster and war in the stars. His letters to
intimate friends are full of grief and anxious forebodings.
"I am devoured by a desire for a better life," he wrote to one
of them. He was oppressed by a sense of the responsibility
that rested upon him as the spokesman and leader of the
Reformation in the declining years of Luther, who had been
formerly his inspiration and strength. It is natural that in
this condition of mind he looked for a new support, and this
he found in Calvin. We can thus easily understand his
wish to die in his arms. But Calvin himself, though more
calm and composed in regard to public affairs, was, as we
have seen, deeply distressed at Regensburg by news of the
ravages of the pestilence among his friends at Strassburg,
besides being harassed by multiplying petitions to return to
Geneva. These troubles and afflictions brought their hearts
nearer to each other.

In their first personal interview at Frankfurt on the Main,
in February, 1539, they at once became intimate, and freely
discussed the burning questions of the day, relating to doc
trine, discipline, and worship.1

As to doctrine, Calvin had previously sent to Melanchthon
a summary, in twelve articles, on the crucial topic of the
real presence. To these Melanchthon assented without dis
pute,2 but confessed that he had no hope of satisfying those

1 Calvin wrote to Farel, after his return to Strassburg, at the end of
March, 1539 : " Cum Philippofuit mihi multis de rebus colloquium."

2 "Sine controversia ipse assentitur." Calvin adds: " de ipso (3/e/.) nihil
dubita, quin penitus nobiscum sentiat." Herminjard, V. 269. In a previous
letter to Farel, October, 1538 (in Herminjard, V. 146 and note 24), he in
formed Farel that he had sent twelve articles of agreement with a letter to
Melanchthon from Strassburg. The articles are lost, but may yet be recov
ered.

§ 90. CALVIN AND MELANCHTHON. 389

who obstinately insisted on a more gross and palpable pres
ence.1 Yet he was anxious that the present agreement, such
as it was, might be cherished until at length the Lord shall lead
both sides into the unity of his own truth. This is no doubt
the reason why he himself refrained from such a full and
unequivocal public expression of his own view as might lead
to a rupture in the Lutheran Church. He went as far as he
deemed it prudent by modifying the tenth article of the
Augsburg Confession, and omitting the anti-Zwinglian clause
(1540).

As to ecclesiastical discipline, Melanchthon deplored the
want of it in Germany, but could see no prospect of improve
ment, till the people would learn to distinguish the yoke of
Christ from the papal tyranny.

As to worship, Calvin frankly expressed his objection to
many ceremonies, which seemed to him to border too closely
on Judaism.2 He was opposed to chanting in Latin, to
pictures and candles in churches, to exorcism in baptism,
and the like. Melanchthon was reluctant to discuss this
point, but admitted that there was an excess of trifling or
unnecessary Roman Catholic rites retained in deference to
the judgment of the Canonists, and expressed the hope that
some of them would be abandoned by degrees.

After the Colloquy at Regensburg the two Reformers saw
each other no more, but continued to correspond as far as

1 " Sed fatetur, esse in ilia parte nonnullos qui crassius aliquid requirant :
atque id tanta pervicacia, ne dicam tyrannide, ut diu in periculo fuerit, quod eum
videbant a suo sensu nonnihil alienum." Herminjard, V. 269. Those men who
outluthered Luther, were not satisfied with the words of institution, simpliciter,
but demanded such scholastic terms as substantialiter, essentialiter, corporaliter,
quantitative, ubiquitaliter, carnaliter. When Matthaeus Zell, preacher in the
Minster at Strassburg, told Melanchthon (in 1536) that he abhorred these
terms as diabolical additions, Melanchthon assented. See Rohrich Mittheilun-
gen aus der Geschichte der evang. Kir die. des Elsasses, III. 133, as quoted by
Stahelin, I. 169.

2 Letter to Farel, April, 1539 (Herminjard, V. 292) : " Nuper Philippo in
faciem non dissimulavi, quin mihi admodum ilia ceremoniarum copia displiceret.
Videri enim mikiformam quam tenent non procul esse a Judaismo"

390 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

their time and multiplicity of duties would permit. The
correspondence of friendship is apt to diminish with the in
crease of age and cares. Several letters are preserved, and
are most creditable to both parties.1

The first letter of Calvin after that Colloquy, is dated
Feb. 16, 1543, and is a lengthy answer to a message from
Melanchthon.2

" You see," he writes, " to what a lazy fellow you have intrusted your letter.
It was full four months before he delivered it to me, and then crushed and
rumpled with much rough usage. But although it has reached me somewhat
late, I set a great value upon the acquisition. . . . Would, indeed, as you
observe, that we could oftener converse together were it only by letters.
To you that would be no advantage ; but to me, nothing in this world could
be more desirable than to take solace in the mild and gentle spirit of your
correspondence. You can scarce believe with what a load of business I am
here burdened and incessantly hurried along ; but in the midst of these dis
tractions there are two things which most of all annoy me. My chief regret
is, that there does not appear to be the amount of fruit that one may reason
ably expect from the labor bestowed; the other is, because I am so far re
moved from yourself and a few others, and therefore am deprived of that
sort of comfort and consolation which would prove a special help to me.

"But since we cannot have even so much at our own choice, that each
at his own discretion might pick out the corner of the vineyard where he
might serve Christ, we must remain at that post which He Himself has allotted
to each. This comfort we have at least, of which no far distant separation
can deprive us, — I mean, that resting content with this fellowship which
Christ has consecrated with his own blood, and has also confirmed and sealed
by his blessed Spirit in our hearts, — while we live on the earth, we may cheer
each other with that blessed hope to which your letter calls us that in heaven
above we shall dwell forever where we shall rejoice in love and in continuance
of our friendship." 3

There can be no nobler expression of Christian friendship.

In the same letter Calvin informs Melanchthon that he

had dedicated to him his " Defence of the Orthodox Doctrine

1 In Calvin's Opera there are fourteen letters of his to Melanchthon.

2 Letters of John Calvin by Dr. Jules Bonnet, translated from the original
Latin and French by Constable, vol. I. 349. In Calvin's Opera, XL 515. The
original copy is in Simler's Collection in the City Library of Zurich.

3 " Hoc saltern nobis nulla regionum longinquitas eripiet, quin hac conjunctione,
quam Christus sanguine suo consecratam Spiritu quoque suo in cordibus nostris
sanxit, contenti, dum vivimus in terra sustineamur beata ilia spe, ad quam nos literal tuce
revocant : in coelis nos simul perpetuo victuros, ubi amort amicitiaque nostrafruemur."

§ 90. CALVIN AND MELANCHTHON. 391

on the Slavery and Deliverance of the Human Will against
the Calumnies of Albert Pighius," which he had urged Cal
vin to write, and which appeared in February, 1543.1 After
some modest account of his labors in Geneva, and judicious
reflections on the condition of the Church in Germany, he
thus concludes : —

"Adieu, 0 man of most eminent accomplishments, and ever to be remem
bered by me and honored in the Lord ! May the Lord long preserve you in
safety to the glory of his name and the edification of the Church. I wonder
what can be the reason why you keep your Daniel a sealed book at home.2
Neither can I suffer myself quietly, without remonstrance, to be deprived of
the benefit of its perusal. I beg you to salute Dr. Martin reverently in my
name. We have here with us at present Bernardino of Siena, an eminent
and excellent man, who has occasioned no little stir in Italy by his secession.
He has requested me that I would greet you in his name. Once more adieu,
along with your family, whom may the Lord continually preserve."

On the llth of May following, Melanchthon thanked Calvin
for the dedication, saying : 3 " I am much affected by your
kindness, and I thank you that you have been pleased to give
evidence of your love for me to all the world, by placing my
name at the beginning of your remarkable book, where all
the world will see it." He gives due praise to the force and
eloquence with which he refuted Pighius, and, confessing
his own inferiority as a writer, encourages him to continue
to exercise his splendid talents for the edification and encour
agement of the Church. Yet, \vhile inferior as a logician
and polemic, he, after all, had a deeper insight into the mys
tery of predestination and free will, although unable to solve
it. He gently hints to his friend that he looked too much
to one side of the problem of divine sovereignty and human
liberty, and says in substance : —

"As regards the question treated in your book, the question of predestina
tion, I had in Tiibingen a learned friend, Franciscus Stadianus, who used to

1 " Defensio sanoe et orthodoxce doctrince de servitute et liberatione humani arbi-
trii adversus calumnias Alberti Pighii Campensis. Opera, VI. 225-404.

'2 Melanchthon's Commentary on Daniel appeared in the same year at
Wittenberg and Leipzig.

3 Opera, vol. XI. 539-542. Also in Corp. fieform. V. 107.

392 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

say, I hold both to be true that all things happen according to divine fore*
ordination, and yet according to their own laws, although he could not har
monize the two. I maintain the proposition that God is not the author of
sin, and therefore cannot will it. David was by his own will carried into
transgression.1 He might have retained the Holy Spirit. In this conflict
there is some margin for free will. . . . Let us accuse our own will if we fall,
and not find the cause in God. He will help and aid those who fight in earn
est, ^ibvov 6£\Tj(rov, says Basilius, /cat deos Trpoairavrd. God promises and gives
help to those who are willing to receive it. So says the Word of God, and in
this let us abide. I am far from prescribing to you, the most learned and
experienced man in all things that belong to piety. I know that in general
you agree with my view. I only suggest that this mode of expression is
better adapted for practical use." 2

In a letter to Camerarius, 1552, Melanchthon expresses his
dissatisfaction with the manner in which Calvin emphasized
the doctrine of predestination, and attempted to force the
Swiss churches to accept it in the Consensus 6renevensis.B

Calvin made another attempt in 1554 to gain him to his
view, but in vain.4 On one point, however, he could agree
to a certain modification ; for he laid stress on the spontane
ity of the will, and rejected Luther's paradoxes, and his com
parison of the natural man to a dead statue.

It is greatly to the credit of Calvin that, notwithstanding
his sensitiveness and intolerance against the opponents of his
favorite dogma, he respected the judgment of the most emi
nent Lutheran divine, and gave signal proof of it by pub
lishing a French translation of the improved edition of
Melanchthon's Theological Commonplaces in 1546, with a
commendatory preface of his own,5 in which he says that the

1 This is a direct contradiction to the assertion in the first edition of his
Loci (1521), and his commentary on the Romans (1524), that God does all
things not permissive, but potenter, and that he foreordained and wrought the
adultery of David, and the treason of Judas, as well as the vocation of Paul.
He so understood the Epistle to the Romans. In December, 1525, Luther
expressed the same views in his book against Erasmus, which he never re
called, but pronounced one of his best books (1537).

2 "Ad ustim accommodata."

8 Mel. Opera, in the Corpus jReformatorum, VII. 390.
* Opera, XV. 215-217. Dated 6 Calendas Septembris.
6 The preface is reprinted in his Opera, vol. IX. 847-850.

§ 90. CALVIN AND MELANCHTHON. 393

book was a brief summary of all things necessary for a Chris
tian to know on the way of salvation, stated in the simplest
manner by the profoundly learned author. He does not con
ceal the difference of views on the subject of free will, and
says that Melanchthon seems to concede to man some share
in his salvation ; yet in such a manner that God's grace is
not in any way diminished, and no ground is left to us for
boasting.

This is the only example of a Reformer republishing and
recommending the work of another Reformer, which was the
only formidable rival of his own chief work on the same sub
ject (the Institutes), and differed from it in several points.1

The revival of the unfortunate eucharistic controversy by
Luther in 1545, and the equally unfortunate controversy
caused by the imperial Interim in 1548, tried the friendship
of the Reformers to the uttermost. Calvin respectfully, yet
frankly, expressed his regret at the indecision and want of
courage displayed by Melanchthon from fear of Luther and
love of peace.

When Luther came out a year before his death with his
most violent and abusive book against the " Sacramenta-
rians,"2 which deeply grieved Melanchthon and roused the
just indignation of the Zwinglians, Calvin wrote to Melanch
thon (June 28, 1545) : 3 -

" Would that the fellow-feeling which enables me to condole with you, and
to sympathize in your heaviness, might also impart the power in some degree
at least to lighten your sorrow. If the matter stands as the Ziirichers say it
does, then they have just occasion for their writing. . . . Your Pericles allows
himself to be carried beyond all bounds with his love of thunder, especially

1 Henry justly remarks (I. 376) : " So free were these rare men of ambi
tion, love of glory, and littleness of spirit, that they thought of nothing but
the salvation of the world. Calvin wanted France to love Melanchthon as
much as he did, and to be converted to Christ through him." Comp. Stahelin,
I. 244.

2 His " Short Confession on the Lord's Supper." See this History, vol. VI.
654 sqq.

8 Bonnet-Constable, I. 442-444 ; Opera, XII. 98-100.

394 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

seeing that his own cause is by no means the better of the two. . . . We all
of us acknowledge that we are much indebted to him. But in the Church
we always must be upon our guard, lest we pay too great a deference to men.
It is all over with her when a single individual has more authority than all
the rest. . . . Where there is so much division and separation as we now
see, it is indeed no easy matter to still the troubled waters, and bring about
composure. . . . You will say he [Luther] has a vehement disposition and
ungovernable impetuosity; as if that very vehemence did not break forth
with all the greater violence when all show themselves alike indulgent to
him, and allow him to have his way unquestioned. If this specimen of over
bearing tyranny has sprung forth already as the early blossom in the spring
tide of a reviving Church, what must we expect in a short time, when affairs
have fallen into a far worse condition? Let us, therefore, bewail the calamity
of the Church and not devour our grief in silence, but venture boldly to
groan for freedom. . . . You have studiously endeavored, by your kindly
method of instruction, to recall the minds of men from strife and contention.
I applaud your prudence and moderation. But while you dread, as you would
some hidden rock, to meddle with this question from fear of giving offence,
you are leaving in perplexity and suspense very many persons who require
from you somewhat of a more certain sound, on which they can repose. . . .
Perhaps it is now the will of God to open the way for a full and satisfactory
declaration of your own mind, that those who look up to your authority may
not be brought to a stand, and kept in a state of perpetual doubt and hesita
tion. . . .

" In the mean time let us run the race set before us with deliberate courage.
I return you very many thanks for your reply, and for the extraordinary
kindness which Claude assures me had been shown to him by you.1 I can
form a conjecture what you would have been to myself, from your having
given so kind and courteous a reception to my friend. I do not cease to offer
my chief thanks to God, who has vouchsafed to us that agreement in opinion
upon the whole of that question [on the real presence] ; for although there is
a slight difference in certain particulars, we are very well agreed upon the
general question itself."

When after the defeat of the Protestants in the Smalkal-
dian War, Melanchthon accepted the Leipzig Interim with
the humiliating condition of conformity to the Roman ritual,
which the German emperor imposed upon them, Calvin was
still more dissatisfied with his old friend. He sided, in this
case, with the Lutheran non-conformists who, under the lead
of Matthias Flacius, resisted the Interim, and were put under

1 Claude de Senarcleus, a friend of Calvin, returned from Wittenberg with
an album full of pious inscriptions of leading Lutheran divines, which is pre
served in the Town Library of Geneva. Bonnet, I.e. I. 444.

§ 90. CALVIN AND MELANCHTHON. 395

the ban of the empire. He wrote to Melanchthon, June 18,
1550, the following letter of remonstrance : l —

" The ancient satirist [Juvenal, I. 79] once said, —

' Si natura negat,facit indignatio versum.'

" It is at present far otherwise with me. So little does my present grief
aid me in speaking, that it rather renders me almost entirely speechless. . . .
I would have you suppose me to be groaning rather than speaking. It is too
well known, from their mocking and jests, how much the enemies of Christ
were rejoicing over your contests with the theologians of Magdeburg.2 . . .
If no blame attaches to you in this matter, my dear Philip, it would be but
the dictate of prudence and justice to devise means of curing, or at least miti
gating, the evil. Yet, forgive me if I do not consider you altogether free
from blame. ... In openly admonishing you, I am discharging the duty of
a true friend; and if I employ a little more severity than usual, do not think
that it is owing to any diminution of my old affection and esteem for you.
... I know that nothing gives you greater pleasure than open candor. . . .
This is the sum of your defence : that, provided purity of doctrine be retained,
externals should not be pertinaciously contended for. . . . But you extend
the distinction of non-essentials too far. You are aware that the Papists have
corrupted the worship of God in a thousand ways. Several of those things
which you consider indifferent are obviously repugnant to the Word of God.
. . . You ought not to have made such large concessions to the Papists. . . .
At the time when circumcision was yet lawful, do you not see that Paul,
because crafty and malicious fowlers were laying snares for the liberty of
believers, pertinaciously refused to concede to them a ceremony at the first
instituted by God? He boasts that he did not yield to them, — no, not for an
hour, — that the truth of God might remain intact among the Gentiles (Gal.
2:5).... I remind you of what I once said to you, that we consider our
ink too precious if we hesitate to bear testimony in writing to those things
which so many of the flock are daily sealing with their blood. . . . The trep
idation of a general is more dishonorable than the flight of a whole herd of
private soldiers. . . . You alone, by only giving way a little, will cause more
complaints and sighs than would a hundred ordinary individuals by open
desertion. And, although I am fully persuaded that the fear of death never
compelled you in the very least to swerve from the right path, yet I am appre
hensive that it is just possible that another species of fear may have proved
too much for your courage. For I know how much you are horrified at the
charge of rude severity. But we should remember that reputation must not
be accounted by the servants of Christ as of more value than life. We are
no better than Paul was, who remained fearlessly on his way through ' evil
and good report.' . . . You know why I am so vehement. I had rather die

1 Opera, XIII. 593 sqq.

2 The zealous Lutherans at Magdeburg which stood out a long siege by
the army of the Elector Maurice.

396 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

with you a hundred times than see you survive the doctrines surrendered by
you. . . .

" Pardon me for loading your breast with these miserable though ineffect
ual groans. Adieu, most illustrious sir, and ever worthy of my hearty regard.
May the Lord continue to guide you by his Spirit, and sustain you by his
might. May his protection guard you. Amen."

We have here a repetition of the scene between Paul and
Peter at Antiocli, concerning the rite of circumcision; and
while we admire the frankness and boldness of Paul and Cal
vin in rebuking an elder brother, and standing up for princi
ple, we must also admire the meekness and humility of Peter
and Melanchthon in bearing the censure.

Melanchthon himself, after a brief interruption, reopened
the correspondence in the old friendly spirit, during the dis
turbances of war between Elector Maurice and the Emperor
Charles, which made an end of the controversy about the
Adiaphora.

" How often," wrote Melanchthon, Oct. 1, 1552, l " would I have written to
you, reverend sir and dearest brother, if I could find more trustworthy letter-
carriers. For I would like to converse with you about many most important
matters, because I esteem your judgment very highly and know the candor
and purity of your soul.2 I am now living as in a wasp's nest ; 3 but perhaps
I shall soon be called from this mortal life to a brighter companionship in
heaven. If I live longer, I have to expect new exiles ; if so, I am determined
to turn to you. The studies are now broken up by pestilence and war. How
often do I mourn and sigh over the causes of this fury among princes."

In a lengthy and interesting answer Calvin says : * —
" Nothing could have come to me more seasonably at this
time than your letter, which I received two months after its
despatch." 5 He assures him that it was no little consolation
to him in his sore trials at Geneva to be assured of the con
tinuance of his affection, which, he was told, had been inter-

1 Opera, XIV. 368 ; Corp. Eef., VII. 1085.

2 " Quiet, et judicium tuum magni facio, et scio integritatem animi et candorem
in te summum esse."

* dxrirep 6vos tv O^TJK/CIIS.

* Bonnet-Constable, II. 360-366 ; Opera, XIV. 415-418.

6 Nowadays a letter from Wittenberg will reach Geneva in less than two
days.

§ 90. CALVIN AND MELANCHTHON. 397

rupted by the letter of remonstrance above referred to. " I
have learned the more gladly that our friendship remains
safe, which assuredly, as it grew out of a heartfelt love of
piety, ought to remain forever sacred and inviolable."

In the unfortunate affair of Servetus, Melanchthon fully
approved Calvin's conduct (1554).1 But during the eucha-
ristic controversy excited by Westphal, he kept an ominous
silence, which produced a coolness between them. In a
letter of Aug. 3, 1557, Calvin complains that for three years
he had not heard from him, but expresses satisfaction that
he still entertained the same affection, and closes with the
wish that he may be permitted " to enjoy on earth a most
delightful interview with you, and feel some alleviation of
my grief by deploring along with you the evils which we
cannot remedy."2

That wish was not granted. In a letter of Nov. 19, 1558,3
he gives him, while still suffering from a quartan ague, a
minute account of his malady, of the remedies of the doctors,
of the formidable coalition of the kings of France and Spain
against Geneva, and concludes with these words : —

"Let us cultivate with sincerity a fraternal affection towards each other,
the ties of which no wiles of the devil shall ever burst asunder. ... By no
slight shall my mind ever be alienated from that holy friendship and respect
which I have vowed to you. . . . Farewell, most illustrious light and dis
tinguished doctor of the Church. May the Lord always govern you by his
Spirit, preserve you long in safety, increase your store of blessings. In your
turn, diligently commend us to the protection of God, as you see us exposed
to the jaws of the wolf. My colleagues and an innumerable crowd of pious
men salute you."

On the 19th of April, 1560, Melanchthon was delivered
from " the fury of the theologians " and all his troubles. A
year after his death Calvin, who had to fight the battle of
faith four years longer, during the renewed fury of the eu-
charistic controversy with the fanatical Heshusius, addressed
this touching appeal to his sainted friend in heaven : —

1 See below, § 139, pp. 706 sqq. 2 Opera, XVI. 556-558.

8 Opera, XVII. 384-386.

398 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

"O Philip Melanchthon! I appeal to thee who now livest with Christ in
the bosom of God, and there art waiting for us till we shall be gathered with
thee to that blessed rest. A hundred times, when worn out with labors and
oppressed with so many troubles, didst thou repose thy head familiarly on
my breast and say, ' Would that I could die in this bosom ! ' Since then
I have a thousand times wished that it had been granted to us to live together ;
for certainly thou wouldst thus have had more courage for the inevitable
contest, and been stronger to despise envy, and to count as nothing all accu
sations. In this manner, also, the malice of many would have been restrained
who, from thy gentleness which they call weakness, gathered audacity for
their attacks."1

Who, in view of this friendship which was stronger than
death, can charge Calvin wifli want of heart and tender
affection ?

§ 91. Calvin and Sadolet. The Vindication of the
Reformation.

SADOLETI : Epistola ad Genevenses (Cal. Apr., i.e. March 18, 1539). — CALVINI :
Responsio ad Sadoletum (Sept. 1, 1539), Argentorati ap. Wendelinum Riche-
lium excusa. In CALV. Opera, vol. V. 385-416. Calvin translated it into
French, 1540 (republished at Geneva, 1860). English translation of both
by HENRY BEVERIDGE in JOHN CALVIN'S Tracts relating to the Reformation,
Edinburgh (Calvin Translation Society), 1844, pp. 3-68. — BEZA, Vita C.,
Opera, XXI. 129.

HENRY, vol. I. ch. XL — DYER, 102 sq. — STAHELIN, I. 291-304.— KAMP-
SCHULTE, I. 354 sq. (only a brief but important notice). — MERLE
D'AUBIGNE, bk. XL ch. XVI., and vol. VI. 570-594.

"Another evil, of a more dangerous kind, arose in the
year 1539, and was at once extinguished by the diligence -of
Calvin. The bishop of Carpentras, at that time, was James
Sadolet, a man of great eloquence, but he perverted it
chiefly in suppressing the light of truth. He had been
appointed a cardinal for no other reason than in order that
his moral respectability might serve to put a kind of gloss
on false religion. Observing his opportunity in the circum
stances which had occurred, and thinking that he would
easily ensnare the flock when deprived of its distinguished
pastors, he sent, under the pretext of neighborhood (for the

i Opera, IX. 461.

§ 91. CALVIN AND SADOLET. 399

city of Carpentras is in Dauphiny, which again bounds on
Savoy), a letter to his so-styled 'most Beloved Senate, Council,
and People of Geneva,' omitting nothing which might tend to
bring them both into the lap of the Romish Harlot.1 There
was nobody at that time in Geneva capable of writing an
answer, and it is, therefore, not unlikely, that, had the letter
not been written in a foreign tongue (Latin), it would, in
the existing state of affairs, have done great mischief to the
city. But Calvin, having read it at Strasbourg, forgot all
his injuries, and forthwith answered it with so much truth
and eloquence, that Sadolet immediately gave up the whole
affair as desperate."

This is Beza's account of that important and interesting
controversy which occurred in the German period of Calvin's
life, and left a permanent impression on history.

The interregnum in Geneva furnished an excellent oppor
tunity for Pierre de la Baume, who had been made a cardi
nal, to recover his lost bishopric. In this respect he only
followed the example of dispossessed princes. He brought
about, with the help of the pope, a consultation of the bishops
of the neighboring dioceses of Lyons, Vienne, Lausanne,
Besan^on, Turin, Langres, and Carpentras. The meeting
was held at Lyons under the presidency of the cardinal of
Tournon, then archbishop of Lyons, and known as a bigoted
persecutor of the Waldenses. Jean Philippe, the chief author
of the banishment of Calvin, aided in the scheme. The
bishop of Carpentras, a town on the borders of Savoy, was
selected for the execution. A better choice could not have
been made.

Jacopo Sadoleto (born at Modena, 1477, died at Rome,
1547) was one of the secretaries of Pope Leo X., bishop of
Carpentras in Dauphiny since 1517, secretary of Clement

1 " In Romance illius meretricis gremium" a frequent polemical designation
of the Roman Church, derived from a misinterpretation of the apocalyptic
harlot which means heathen Rome (Rev. 17:5).

400 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

VII. in 1523, a cardinal since 1536. He was frequently em
ployed in diplomatic peace negotiations between the pope,
the king of France, and the emperor of Germany. He had
a high reputation as a scholar, a poet, and a gentleman of
irreproachable character and devout piety. He best repre
sents the Italian Renaissance in its leaning towards a moder
ate semi-evangelical reform within the Catholic Church. He
was an admirer of Erasmus and Melanchthon, and one of the
founders of the Oratory at Rome for purposes of mutual edi
fication. He acted, like Contarini, as a mediator between
the Roman and Protestant parties, but did not please either.
In his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, he ex
pressed opinions on divine grace and free-will which gave
offence in Rome and in Spain. His colleague, Cardinal
Bembo, warned him against the study of St. Paul, lest it
might spoil his classical style. Sadolet prevented the spread
of Calvinism in his diocese, but was opposed to violent per
secution. He kindly received the fugitive Waldenses after
the terrible massacre of Me'rindol and Cabrie"res, in 1545, and
besought the clemency of Francis I. in their behalf. He
was grieved and disgusted with the nepotism of Pope Paul
III., and declined the appointment to preside over the Coun
cil of Trent as papal delegate, on the score of extreme
poverty.

This highly respectable dignitary of the papal hierarchy
made a very able and earnest effort to win back the orphan
Church of Geneva to the sheepfold of Rome. He thereby
came involuntarily into a literary conflict with Calvin, in
which he was utterly defeated. Fresh from a visit to the
pope, he addressed a letter of some twenty or more octavo
pages " to his dearly beloved Brethren, the Magistrates, Sen
ate, and Citizens of Geneva." It is written in elegant Latin,
and with persuasive eloquence, of which he was a consum
mate master.

He assumes the air of authority as a cardinal and papal

§ 91. CALVIN AND SADOLET. 401

legate, and begins with an apostolic greeting : " Very dear
Brethren in Christ, — Peace to you and with us, that is, with
the Catholic Church, the mother of all, both of us and you,
love and concord from God, the Father Almighty, and from
his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, together with the Holy Spirit,
perfect Unity in Trinity ; to whom be praise and dominion
for ever and ever." He flatters the Genevese by praising
their noble city, the order and form of their republic, the
worth of their citizens, and especially their " hospitality to
strangers and foreigners," but he casts suspicion on the char
acter and motives of the Reformers. This uncharitable and
ungentlemanly reflection mars the beauty and dignity of his
address, and weakened its effect upon the citizens of Geneva
who, whatever were their religious views, had no doubt about
the honesty and earnestness of Farel, Viret, and Calvin.

After this introduction Sadolet gives a very plausible ex
position of the principle of the Catholic doctrines, but ignores
the Bible. He admits that man is saved by faith alone, but
adds the necessity of good works. He then asks the Gene
vese to decide, " Whether it be more expedient for their
salvation to believe and follow what the Catholic Church has
approved with general consent for more than fifteen hundred
years, or innovations introduced within these twenty-five
years by crafty men." He then adduces the stock argu
ments of antiquity, universality, unity, and inerrancy, while
the Protestants were already broken up into warring sects —
a manifest indication of falsehood. For " truth," he says,
" is always one, while error is varied and multiform ; that
which is straight is simple, that which is crooked has many
turns. Can any one who confesses Christ, fail to perceive
that such teaching of the holy Church is the proper work of
Satan, and not of God? What does God demand of us?
What does Christ enjoin? That we be all one in him."

He closes with an earnest exhortation, and assures the
Genevese : " Whatever I possibly can do, although it is very

402 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

little, still if I have in me any talent, skill, authority, indus
try, I offer them all to you and your interests, and will
regard it as a great favor to myself should you be able to
reap any fruit and advantage from my labor and assistance
in things human and divine."

The Council of Geneva politely acknowledged the receipt
of the cardinal's letter with thanks for the compliments
paid to the Genevese, and promised a full reply in due time.
This was March 27. On the next day a number of citizens,
under the lead of Francois Chamois, entered a protest against
the ordinance by which the Confession of Faith had been
adopted, July 29, 1537, and asked to be released from the
oath. The Romanists took courage. No one could be found
in Geneva who was able to answer the cardinal's letter, and
silence might be construed into consent.

Calvin received a copy of the appeal through Sulzer, a
minister of Bern, wrote an answer of more than twice its
length in six days, and despatched it to Geneva in time to
neutralize the mischief (Sept. 1). Though not mentioned
by name, he was indirectly assailed by the cardinal as the
chief among those who had been denounced as misleaders and
disturbers of the peace of Geneva. He therefore felt it his
duty to take up the pen in defence of the Reformation.

He begins by paying a just tribute to the cardinal for his
" excellent learning and admirable eloquence," which raised
him to a place among the first scholars of the age. Nor did
he impeach his motives. " I will give you credit," he says,
" for having written to the Genevese with the purest inten
tion as becomes one of your learning, prudence, and gravity,
and for having in good faith advised them to the course
which you believed to be to their interest and safety." He
was, therefore, reluctant to oppose him, and he did so only
under an imperative sense of duty. We let him speak for
himself.1

1 In the following extracts I make use of the translation of Henry Bever-
idge, with a few slight changes.

§ 91. CALVIN AND SADOLET. 403

" I profess to be one of those whom, with so much enmity, you assail and
stigmatize. For though religion was already established, and the form of the
Church corrected, before I was invited to Geneva, yet having not only
approved by my suffrage, but studied as much as in me lay to preserve and
confirm what had been done by Viret and Farel, I cannot separate my case
from theirs. Still, if you had attacked me in my private character, I could
easily have forgiven the attack in consideration of your learning, and in honor
of letters. But when I see that my ministry, which I feel assured is supported
and sanctioned by a call from God, is wounded through my side, it would be
perfidy, not patience, were I here to be silent and connive.

" In that Church I have held the office, first of Doctor, and then of Pastor.
In my own right I maintain that, in undertaking these offices, I had a legiti
mate vocation. How faithfully and religiously I have performed them, there
is no occasion for now showing at length. Perspicuity, erudition, prudence,
ability, or even industry, I will not claim for myself, but that I certainly
labored with the sincerity which became me in the work of the Lord, I can
in conscience appeal to Christ, my Judge, and all his angels, while all good
men bear clear testimony in my favcr. This ministry, therefore, when it
shall appear to have been of God (as it certainly shall appear after the cause
has been heard), were I in silence to allow you to tear and defame, who
would not condemn such silence as treachery ? Every person, therefore, now
sees that the strongest obligations of duty — obligations which I cannot evade
— constrain me to meet your accusations, if I would not with manifest per
fidy desert and betray a cause with which the Lord has intrusted me. For
though I am for the present relieved of the charge of the Church of Geneva,
that circumstance ought not to prevent me from embracing it with paternal
affection — God, when he gave it to me in charge, having bound me to be
faithful forever."

He repels with modest dignity the frivolous charge of
having embraced the cause of the Reformation from dis
appointed ambition.

" I am unwilling to speak of myself, but since you do not permit me to be
altogether silent, I will say what I can consistently with modesty. Had I
wished to consult my own interest, I would never have left your party. I will
not, indeed, boast that there the road to preferment had been easy to me.
I never desired it, and I could never bring my mind to catch at it ; although
I certainly know not a few of my own age who have crept up to some
eminence — among them some whom I might have equalled, and others out
stripped. This only I will be contented to say, it would not have been diffi
cult for me to reach the summit of my wishes, viz., the enjoyment of literary
ease with something of a free and honorable station. Therefore, I have no
fear that any one not possessed of shameless effrontery will object to me, that
out of the kingdom of the pope I sought for any personal advantage which
was not there ready to my hand."

404 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

The Reformer follows the cardinal's letter step by step,
and defeats him at every point. He answers his assertions
with facts and arguments. He destroys, like a cobweb, his
beautiful picture of an ideal Catholicism by a description of
the actual papacy of those days, with its abuses and corrup
tions, which were the real cause of the Reformation. He
gives a very dark account, indeed, but it is fully confirmed
by what is authentically known of the lives of such popes as
Alexander VI. and Leo X., by the invectives of Savonarola,
by the observations of Erasmus and Luther on their expe
rience in Rome, by such impartial witnesses as Machiavelli,
who says that religion was almost destroyed in Italy owing
to the bad example set by the popes, and even by the testi
mony of an exceptionally good and pious pope, Adrian VI.,
who, with all his abhorrence of the Lutheran heresy, officially
confessed the absolute necessity of a moral reform in the
head and members of the hierarchy.

" We deny not," says Calvin, " that those over whom you preside are
churches of Christ, but we maintain that the Roman pontiff, with his whole
herd of pseudo-bishops, who have seized upon the pastor's office, are ravening
wolves, whose only study has hitherto been to scatter and trample upon the
kingdom of Christ, filling it with ruin and devastation. Nor are we the first
to make the complaint. With what vehemence does Bernard thunder against
Eugenius and all the bishops of his own age ? Yet how much more tolerable
was its condition than now ?

" For iniquity has reached its height, and now those shadowy prelates, by
whom you think the Church stands or perishes, and by whom we say that
she has been cruelly torn and mutilated, and brought to the very brink of
destruction, can bear neither their vices nor the cure of them. Destroyed
the Church would have been, had not God, with singular goodness, prevented.
For in all places where the tyranny of the Roman pontiff prevails, you
scarcely see as many stray and tattered vestiges as will enable you to per
ceive that these Churches lie half buried. Nor should you think this absurd,
since Paul tells you that Antichrist would have his seat in no other place
than in the midst of God's sanctuary (2 Thess. 2:4). . . .

"But whatever the character of the men, still, you say, it is written, ' What
they tell you, do.' No doubt, if they sit in the chair of Moses. But when,
from the chair of verity, they intoxicate the people with folly, it is written,
' Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees ' (Matt. 12 : 0). . . .

"Let your pontiff boast as he may of the succession of Peter: even if he
should make good his title to it, he will establish nothing more than that

§ 91. CALVIN AND SADOLET. 405

obedience is due to him from the Christian people so long as he himself main
tains his fidelity to Christ, and does not deviate from the purity of the gospel.
. . . A prophet should be judged by the congregation (1 Cor. 14:29).
Whoever exempts himself from this must first expunge his name from the
list of the prophets. . . .

" As to your assertion, that our only aim in shaking off this tyrannial yoke
was to set ourselves free for unbridled licentiousness after (so help us !) cast
ing away all thoughts of future life, let judgment be given after comparing
our conduct with yours. We abound, indeed, in numerous faults; too often
do we sin and fall. Still, though truth would, modesty will not, permit me
to boast how far we excel you in every respect, unless, perchance, you except
Rome, that famous abode of sanctity, which having burst asunder the cords
of pure discipline, and trodden all honor under foot, has so overflowed with
all kinds of iniquity, that scarcely anything so abominable has ever been
before."

At the close of his letter, Saclolet had cited the Reformers
as criminals before the judgment-seat of God, in an imaginary
confession to the effect that they had been actuated by base
motives of pride and disappointed ambition in their assaults
upon the holy Church and the vicegerent of Christ, and
become guilty of " great seditions and schisms."

Calvin takes up the challenge by a counter-confession,
which introduces us into the very heart of the great religious
struggle of the sixteenth century, and is perhaps the ablest
vindication of the Reformation to be found in the controver
sial literature of that time. He puts that movement on the
ground of the Word of God against the commandments of
men, and justifies it by the protests of the Hebrew prophets
against the corruptions of the Levitical priesthood, and
Christ's fearful denunciations of the Pharisees and Saddu-
cees, who nailed the Saviour to the cross. The same con
fession contains also an incidental account of the spiritual
experience and conversion of the author, who speaks for
himself as well as his colleagues. We give it in full.

" Consider now what serious answer you are to make for yourself and
your party. Our cause, as it is supported by the truth of God, will be at no
loss for a complete defence. I am not speaking of our persons ; their safety
will be found not in defence, but in humble confession and suppliant depre
cation. But in so far as our ministry is concerned, there is none of us who
will not be able thus to speak : —

406 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

" ' O Lord, I have, indeed, experienced how difficult and grievous it was
to bear the invidious accusations with which I was harassed on the earth;
but with the same confidence with which I then appealed to Thy tribunal,
I now appear before Thee, because I know that in Thy judgment truth always
reigns — that truth by whose assurance supported I first ventured to attempt
— with whose assistance provided I was able to accomplish whatever I have
achieved in Thy Church.

" ' They charged me with two of the worst of crimes — heresy and schism.
And the heresy was, that I dared to protest against dogmas which they
received. But what could I have done 1 I heard from Thy mouth that
there was no other light of truth which could direct our souls into the way of
life, than that which was kindled by Thy Word. I heard that whatever human
minds of themselves conceive concerning Thy Majesty, the worship of Thy
Deity, and the mysteries of Thy religion, was vanity. I heard that their
introducing into the Church instead of Thy Word, doctrines sprung from the
human brain, was sacrilegious presumption.

" ' But when I turned my eyes towards men, I saw very different principles
prevailing. Those who were regarded as the leaders of faith, neither under
stood Thy Word, nor greatly cared for it. They only drove unhappy people
to and fro with strange doctrines, and deluded them with I know not what
follies. Among the people themselves, the highest veneration paid to Thy
Word was to revere it at a distance, as a thing inaccessible, and abstain from
all investigation of it.

" ' Owing to this supine state of the pastors, and this stupidity of the peo
ple, every place was filled with pernicious errors, falsehoods, and superstition.
They, indeed, called Thee the only God, but it was while transferring to
others the glory which thou hast claimed for Thy Majesty. They figured
and had for themselves as many gods as they had saints, whom they chose
to worship. Thy Christ was indeed worshipped as God, and retained the
name of Saviour ; but where He ought to have been honored, He was left almost
without honor. For, spoiled of His own virtue, He passed unnoticed among
the crowd of saints, like one of the meanest of them. There was none who
duly considered that one sacrifice which He offered on the cross, and by which
He reconciled us to Thyself — none who ever dreamed of thinking of His
eternal priesthood, and the intercession depending upon it — none who trusted
in His righteousness only. That confident hope of salvation which is both
enjoined by Thy Word, and founded upon it, had almost vanished. Nay, it
>vas received as a Ivind of oracle, that it was foolish arrogance, and, as they
termed it, presumption for any one trusting to Thy goodness, and the right
eousness of Thy Son, to entertain a sure and unfaltering hope of salvation.

"'Not a few profane opinions plucked up by the roots the first principles
of that doctrine which Thou hast delivered to us in Thy Word. The true
meaning of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, also, was corrupted by numerous
falsehoods. And then, when all, with no small insult to Thy mercy, put
confidence in good works, when by good works they strove to merit Thy
favor, to procure justification, to expiate their sins, and make satisfaction to
Thee (each of these things obliterating and making void the virtue of Christ's

§ 91. CALVIN AND SADOLET. 407

cross), they were yet altogether ignorant wherein good works consisted. For
just as if they were not at all instructed in righteousness by Thy law, they
had fabricated for themselves many useless frivolities, as a means of procur
ing Thy favor, and on these they so plumed themselves, that, in compari
son of them, they almost contemned the standard of true righteousness which
Thy law recommended, — to such a degree had human desires, after usurping
the ascendancy, derogated, if not from the belief, at least from the authority,
of Thy precepts therein contained.

" ' That I might perceive these things, Thou, 0 Lord, didst shine upon
me with the brightness of Thy Spirit ; that I might comprehend how impious
and noxious they were, Thou didst bear before me the torch of Thy Word ;
that I might abominate them as they deserved, Thou didst stimulate my
soul.

" ' But in rendering an account of my doctrine, Thou seest (what my own
conscience declares) that it was not my intention to stray beyond those limits
which I saw had been fixed by all Thy servants. Whatever I felt assured that
I had learned from Thy mouth, I desired to dispense faithfully to the Church.
Assuredly, the thing at which I chiefly aimed, and for which I most diligently
labored, was, that the glory of Thy goodness and justice, after dispersing the
mists by which it was formerly obscured, might shine forth conspicuous, that
the virtue and blessings of Thy Christ (all glosses being wiped away) might
be fully displayed. For I thought it impious to leave in obscurity things
which we were born to ponder and meditate. Nor did I think that truths,
whose magnitude no language can express, were to be maliciously or falsely
declared.

" ' I hesitated not to dwell at greater length on topics on which the salva
tion of my hearers depended. For the oracle could never deceive which
declares (John 17:3): "This is eternal life to know Thee the only true
God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent."

"'As to the charge of forsaking the Church, which they were wont to
bring against me, there is nothing of which my conscience accuses me, unless,
indeed, he is to be considered a deserter, who, seeing the soldiers routed and
scattered, and abandoning the ranks, raises the leader's standard, and recalls
them to their posts. For thus, O Lord, were all thy servants dispersed, so
that they could not, by any possibility, hear the command, but had almost
forgotten their leader, and their service, and their military oath. In order to
bring them together, when thus scattered, I raised not a foreign standard, but
that noble banner of Thine which we must follow, if we would be classed
among Thy people. Then I was assailed by those who, when they ought to
have kept others in their ranks, had led them astray, and when I determined
not to desist, opposed me with violence. On this grievous tumults arose, and
the contest blazed and issued in disruption.

" ' With whom the blame rests it is for Thee, O Lord, to decide. Always,
both by word and deed, have I protested how eager I was for unity. Mine,
however, was a unity of the Church, which should begin with Thee and end
in Thee. For as oft as Thou didst recommend to us peace and concord, Thou,
at the same time, didst show that Thou wert the only bond for preserving it.

408 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

" ' But if I desired to be at peace with those who boasted of being the
heads of the Church and pillars of faith, I behoved to purchase it with the
denial of Thy truth. I thought that anything was to be endured sooner than
stoop to such a nefarious compact. For Thy Anointed Himself hath declared,
that though heaven and earth should be confounded, yet Thy Word must
endure forever (Matt. 24:35).

" ' Nor did I think that I dissented from Thy Church because I was at war
with those leaders ; for Thou hast forewarned me, both by Thy Son, and by
the apostles, that that place would be occupied by persons to whom I ought
by no means to consent. Christ had predicted not of strangers, but of men
who should give themselves out for pastors, that they would be ravenous
wolves and false prophets, and had, at the same time, cautioned me to beware
of them. Where Christ ordered me to beware, was I to lend my aid ? And the
apostles declared that there would be no enemies of Thy Church more pesti
lential than those from within who should conceal themselves under the title
of pastors (Matt. 7:15; Acts 20: 29; 2 Pet. 2:1; 1 John 2: 18).

" ' Why should I have hesitated to separate myself from persons whom
they forewarned me to hold as enemies ? I had before my eyes the examples
of Thy prophets, who I saw had a similar contest with the priests and false
prophets of their day, though these were undoubtedly the rulers of the
Church among the Israelitish people. But Thy prophets are not regarded as
schismatics, because, when they wished to revive religion, which had fallen
into decay, they desisted not, although opposed with the utmost violence.
They still remained in the unity of the Church, though they were doomed to
perdition by wicked priests, and deemed unworthy of a place among men, not
to say saints.

" ' Confirmed by their example, I, too, persisted. Though denounced as a
deserter of the Church, and threatened, I was in no respect deterred or induced
to proceed less firmly and boldly in opposing those, who, in the character of
pastors, wasted Thy Church with a more than impious tyranny. My conscience
told me how strong the zeal was with which I burned for the unity of Thy
Church, provided Thy truth were made the bond of concord. As the com
motions which followed were not excited by me, so there is no ground for
imputing them to me. Thou, 0 Lord, knowest, and the fact itself lias testified
to men, that the only thing I asked was, that all controversies should be
decided by Thy Word, that thus both parties might unite with one mind to
establish Thy kingdom ; and I declined not to restore peace to the Church
at the expense of my head, if I were found to have been unnecessarily the
cause of tumult.

"'But what did our opponents ? Did they not instantly, and like madmen
fly to fires, swords, and gibbets ? Did they not decide that their only security
was in arms and cruelty ? Did they not instigate all ranks to the same fury ?
Did they not spurn at all methods of pacification ? To this it is owing that a
matter, which might at one time have been settled amicably, has blazed into
such a contest. But although, amidst the great confusion, the judgments
of men were various, I am freed from all fear, now that we stand at Thy
tribunal, where equity, combined with truth, cannot but decide in favor of
innocence.'

§ 91. CALVIN AND SADOLET. 409

" Such, Sadolet, is our pleading, not the fictitious one which you, in order
to aggravate our case, were pleased to devise, but that the perfect truth of
which is known to the good even now, and will be made manifest to all
creatures on that day. Nor will those who, instructed by our preaching, have
adhered to our cause, be at loss what to say for themselves, since each will be
ready with this defence : —

" ' I, O Lord, as I had been educated from a boy, always professed the
Christian faith. But at first I had no other reason for my faith than that
which then everywhere prevailed. Thy Word, which ought to have shone on
all Thy people like a lamp, was taken away, or at least suppressed as to us.
And lest any one should long for greater light, an idea had been instilled into
the minds of all, that the investigation of that hidden celestial philosophy was
better delegated to a few, whom the others might consult as oracles — that
the highest knowledge befitting plebeian minds was to subdue themselves into
obedience to the Church. Then, the rudiments in which I had been instructed
were of a kind which could neither properly train me to the legitimate wor
ship of Thy Deity, nor pave the way for me to a sure hope of salvation, nor
train me aright for the duties of the Christian life. I had learned, indeed, to
worship Thee only as my God, but as the true method of worshipping was
altogether unknown to me, I stumbled at the very threshold. I believed, as
I had been taught, that I was redeemed by the death of Thy Son from the
liability to eternal death, but the redemption I thought of was one whose
virtue could never reach me. I anticipated a future resurrection, but hated
to think of it, as being an event most dreadful. And this feeling not only
had dominion over me in private, but was derived from the doctrine which
was then uniformly delivered to the people by their Christian teachers.

'"They, indeed, preached of Thy clemency towards men, but confined it
to those who should show themselves deserving of it. They, moreover,
placed this desert in the righteousness of works, so that he only was received
into Thy favor who reconciled himself to Thee by works. Nor, meanwhile,
did they disguise the fact that we are miserable sinners, that we often fall
through infirmity of the flesh, and that to all, therefore, Thy mercy behoved
to be the common haven of salvation ; but the method of obtaining it, which
they pointed out, was by making satisfaction to Thee for offences. Then the
satisfaction enjoined was, first, after confessing all our sins to a priest, sup-
pliantly to ask pardon and absolution ; and, secondly, by good to efface from
Thy remembrance our bad actions. Lastly, in order to supply what was still
wanting, we were to add sacrifices and solemn expiations. Then, because
Thou wert a stern judge and strict avenger of iniquity, they showed how
dreadful Thy presence must be. Hence they bade us flee first to the saints,
that by their intercession Thou mightest be rendered exorable and propitious
to us.

" ' When, however, I had performed all these things, though I had some
intervals of quiet, I was still far off from true peace of conscience ; for,
whenever I descended into myself, or raised my mind to Thee, extreme terror
seized me — terror which no expiations or satisfactions could cure. And the
more closely I examined myself, the sharper the stings with which my con-

410 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

science was pricked, so that the only solace which remained to me was to
delude myself by obliviousness. Still, as nothing better offered, I continued
the course which I had begun, when, lo ! a very different form of doctrine
started up, not one which led us away from the Christian profession, but one
which brought it back to its fountain-head, and, as it were, clearing away the
dross, restored it to its original purity.

"'Offended by the novelty, I lent an unwilling ear, and at first, I confess,
strenuously and passionately resisted; for (such is the firmness or effrontery
with which it is natural to men to persist in the course which they have once
undertaken) it was with the greatest difficulty I was induced to confess that
I had all my life long been in ignorance and error. One thing, in particular,
made me averse to those new teachers, viz. reverence for the Church.

" ' But when once I opened my ears, and allowed myself to be taught, I
perceived that this fear of derogating from the majesty of the Church was
groundless. For they reminded me how great the difference is between schism
from the Church, and studying to correct the faults by which the Church
herself was contaminated. They spoke nobly of the Church, and showed the
greatest desire to cultivate unity. And lest it should seem they quibbled on
the term Church, they showed it was no new thing for Antichrists to preside
there in place of pastors. Of this they produced not a few examples, from
which it appeared they aimed at nothing but the edification of the Church,
and in that respect were similarly circumstanced with many of Christ's ser
vants whom we ourselves included in the catalogue of saints.

"'For inveighing more freely against the Roman Pontiff, who was rev
erenced as the Vicegerent of Christ, the Successor of Peter, and the Head of
the Church, they excused themselves thus : Such titles as those are empty
bugbears, by which the eyes of the pious ought not to be so blinded as not to
venture to look at them and sift the reality. It was when the world was
plunged in ignorance and sloth, as in a deep sleep, that the pope had risen to
such an eminence ; certainly neither appointed head of the Church by the
Word of God, nor ordained by a legitimate act of the Church, but of his own
accord, self -elected. Moreover, the tyranny which he let loose against the
people of God was not to be endured, if we wished to have the kingdom of
Christ amongst us in safety.

" ' And they wanted not most powerful arguments to confirm all their
positions. First, they clearly disposed of everything that was then commonly
adduced to establish the primacy of the pope. When they had taken away
all these props, they also, by the Word of God, tumbled him from his lofty
height. On the whole, they make it clear and palpable, to learned and
unlearned, that the true order of the Church had then perished, — that the
keys under which the discipline of the Church is comprehended had been
altered very much for the worse; that Christian liberty had fallen, — in short,
that the kingdom of Christ was prostrated when this primacy was reared up.
They told me, moreover, as a means of pricking my conscience, that I could
not safely connive at these things as if they concerned me not; that so far
art Thou from patronizing any voluntary error, that even he who is led astray
by mere ignorance does not err with impunity. This they proved by the

§ 91 CALVIN AND SADOLET. 411

testimony of Thy Son (Matt. 15 : 14) : " If the blind lead the blind, both shall
fall into the ditch."

" ' My mind being now prepared for serious attention, I at length perceived,
as if light had broken in upon me, in what a stye of error I had wallowed,
and how much pollution and impurity I had thereby contracted. Being
exceedingly alarmed at the misery into which I had fallen, and much more
at that which threatened me in the view of eternal death, I, as in duty bound,
made it my first business to betake myself to Thy way, condemning my past
life, not without groans and tears.

" ' And now, 0 Lord, what remains to a wretch like me, but, instead of
defence, earnestly to supplicate Thee not to judge according to its deserts
that fearful abandonment of Thy Word, from which, in Thy wondrous good
ness, Thou hast at last delivered me.'

"Now, Sadolet, if you please, compare this pleading with that which you
have put into the mouth of your plebeian. It will be strange if you hesitate
which of the two you ought to prefer. For the safety of that man hangs by
a thread whose defence turns wholly on this — that he has constantly adhered
to the religion handed down to him from his forefathers. At this rate, Jews
and Turks and Saracens would escape the judgment of God.

" Away, then, with this vain quibbling at a tribunal which will be erected,
not to approve the authority of man, but to condemn all flesh of vanity and
falsehood, and vindicate the truth of God only."

Calvin descends to repel with just indignation the ground
less charge of avarice and greed which Sadolet was not
ashamed to cast upon the Reformers, who might have easily
reached the dignity and wealth of bishops and cardinals, but
who preferred to live and die in poverty for the sake of their
sacred convictions.

" Would not," he asked, " the shortest road to riches and honors have been
to accept the terms which were offered at the very first ? How much would
your pontiff then have paid to many for their silence ? How much would he
pay for it even at the present day ? If they were actuated in the least degree
by avarice, why do they cut off all hope of improving their fortune, and
prefer to be thus perpetually wretched, rather than enrich themselves without
difficulty and in a moment ?

" But ambition, forsooth, withholds them ! What ground you had for this
other insinuation I see not, since those who first engaged in this cause could
expect nothing else than to be spurned by the whole world, and those who
afterwards adhered to it, exposed themselves knowingly and willingly to
endless insults and revilings from every quarter."

He then answers to " the most serious charge of all " : that
the Reformers had " dismembered the Spouse of Christ,"
while in fact they attempted " to present her as a chaste

412 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

virgin of Christ," and, " seeing her polluted by base seducers,
to recall her to conjugal fidelity," after having been defiled
by the idolatry of image-worship and numberless supersti
tions. Peace and unity can only be found in Christ and his
truth. He concludes with the wish : —

" May the Lord grant, Sadolet, that you and all your party may at length
perceive that the only true bond of Church unity is Christ the Lord, who has
reconciled us to God the Father, and will gather us out of our present disper
sion into the fellowship of His body, that so, through His one Word and
Spirit, we may grow together into one heart and one soul."

Such is a summary of that remarkable Answer — a master
piece of dignified and gentlemanly theological controversy.
There is scarcely a parallel to it in the literature of that age,
which teems with uncharitable abuse and coarse invective.
Melanchthon might have equalled it in courtesy and good
taste, but not in adroitness and force. No wonder that the
old lion of Wittenberg was delighted with this triumphant
vindication of the evangelical Reformation by a young
Frenchman, who was to carry on the conflict which he him
self had begun twenty years before by his Theses and his
heroic stand at the Diet of Worms. " This answer," said
Luther to Cruciger, who had met Calvin at the Colloquies
in Worms and Regensburg, "has hand and foot, and I rejoice
that God raises up men who will give the last blow to popery,
and finish the war against Antichrist which I began." 1

1 See vol. VI. 659. Kampschulte's impartial judgment on the Answer to
Sadolet is worth quoting (I. 354): " Es ist in Wahrheit eine der gldnzendsten
Streitschriften, die je aits seiner Feder r/eflossen, und auch wer seine Anschauungen
nicht theilt, wird ihm in diesem Streite die Palme zuerkennen miissen. . . . Er
cntwickelt in der Vortheidigung des neuen Glanbenssy 'stems eine Kraft der Rede,
cine, Gewandtheit der Beweisftihrung und eine Fiille der Gedanken, welche die rhetor-
ischen, sentimentalen, oft auch inhaltsarmen Phrasen des Gegners urn so mehr in
Hirer Schwdche zeigen. Den Glanznunkt der Schrift Calvin's bildet aber vielleicht
seine eigene Vertheidiqung. Jfit Recht dnrfte er den versteckten Angriffen des Car
dinals gegeniiber auf sein vergangenes Leben hinweisen, um den Beiceis zu hefern,
dass nicht die Aussicht auf irdischen Gewinn oder dussere Ehren, sondern seine
ernste Ueberzeugung seine Schritte geleitet, dass er erst nach schweren Kdmpfen von
.der katholischen Kirche sich losgesagt. Diese Schrift war es, welche auch Luther's

§ 92. CALVIN'S MARRIAGE AND HOME LIFE. 413

The Answer made a deep and lasting impression. It was
widely circulated, with Sadolet's Letter, in manuscript,
printed in Latin, first at Strassburg, translated into French,
and published in both languages by the Council of Geneva at
the expense of the city (1540). The prelates who had met
at Lyons lost courage ; the papal party in Geneva gave up
all hope of restoring the mass. Three years afterwards
Cardinal Pierre de la Baume died — the last bishop of
Geneva.

§ 92. Calvin's Marriage and Home Life.

CALVIN'S Letters to Farel and Viret quoted below.

JULES BONNET : Idelette de Bure, femme de Calvin. In the " Bulletin de la

Soeiete de 1'histoire du protestantisme fran9ais." Quatrieme annee. Paris,

1856. pp. 636-646. — D. LEXOIR, ibid. 1860. p. 26. (A brief note.)
HENRY, I. 407 sqq. — DYER, 99 sqq. — STAHELIN, I. 272 sqq. — MERLE o'Au-

BIGNE, bk. XL ch. XVII. (vol. VI. 601-608). — STRICKER, I.e. 42-50.—

(KAMPSCHULTE is silent on this topic.)

The most important event in Calvin's private life during his
sojourn in Germany was his marriage, which took place early
in August, 1540. l He expresses his views on marriage in
his comments on Ephesians 5 : 28-33. " It is a thing against
nature," he remarks, " that any one should not love his wife,
for God has ordained marriage in order that two may be
made one person — a result which, certainly, no other alli
ance can bring about. When Moses says that a man shall
leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife, he shows
that a man ought to prefer marriage to every other union, as
being the holiest of all. It reflects our union with Christ,
who infuses his very life unto us ; for we are flesh of his

Herz far den wdlschen Rivalen erwarmte. Damals konnte Melanchthon nach Strass
burg mehlen, dass Calvin in Wittenberg ' iwcJi in Gnaden stehe.' "

1 The precise day is not known. Before Aug. 17 he was a married man,
and received congratulations and greetings to his wife from Libertet (Opera,
XI. Ep. 284, fol. 77). Merle d'Aubigne' wrongly puts his marriage at the end
of August ; Bonnet and Stahelin, in September.

414 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZEKLAND.

flesh, and bone of his bone. This is a great mystery, the
dignity of which cannot be expressed in words/'

He himself was in no hurry to get married, and put it off
till he was over thirty. He rather boasted that people could
not charge him with having assailed Rome, as the Greeks
besieged Troy, for the sake of a woman. What led him first
to think of it, was the sense of loneliness and the need of
proper care, that he might be able the better to serve the
Church. He had a housekeeper, with her son, a woman of
violent temper who sorely tried his patience. At one time
she abused his brother so violently that he left the house,
and then she ran away, leaving her son behind. The dis
turbance made him sick.1

He was often urged by his friend Farel (who himself found
no time to think of marrying till his old age), and by Bucer,
to take a wife, that he might enjoy the comforts of a well-
ordered home. He first mentions the subject in a letter to
Farel, from Strassburg, May 19, 1539, in which he says : " I
am none of those insane lovers who, when once smitten with
the fine figure of a woman, embrace also her faults. This
only is the beauty which allures me, if she be chaste, obliging,
not fastidious, economical, patient, and careful for my health.2
Therefore, if you think well of it, set out immediately, lest
some one else [Bucer?] gets the start of you. But if you
think otherwise we will let it pass." It seems Farel could
not find a person that combined all these qualities, and the
matter was dropped for several months.

In Feb. 6, 1540, Calvin, in a letter to the same friend,
touched again upon the subject of matrimony, but only inci
dentally, as if it were a subordinate matter. After informing

1 He tells the story to Farel, September, 1540, shortly after his marriage.
Opera, XI. Ep. 238 (fol. 83 sq.), and Herrainjard, VI. 313.

2 " H(ec sola est quce me illectat pulchritude, si pudica est, si morigera, si non
fastuosa, si parca, si patiens, si spes est de mea valet udine fore solicitam." Her-
minjard, V. 314.

§ 92. CALVIN'S MARRIAGE AND HOME LIFE. 415

him about his trouble with Caroli, his discussion with Her
mann, an Anabaptist, the good understanding of Charles V.
and Francis I., and the alarm of the Protestant princes of
Germany, he goes on to say : " Nevertheless, in the midst
of such commotions as these, I am so much at my ease as to
have the audacity to think of taking a wife. A certain dam
sel of noble rank has been proposed to me,1 and with a
fortune above my condition. Two considerations deterred
me from that connection — because she did not understand
our language, and because I feared she might be too mindful
of her family and education." 2

He sent his brother for another lady, who was highly
recommended to him. He expected to get married March
10, and invited Farel to celebrate the wedding. But this
project also failed, and he thought of abandoning all further
attempts.

At last he married a member of his congregation, Idelette
de Bure, the widow of Jean Stordeur (or Storder) of Liege,3
a prominent Anabaptist whom he had converted to the
orthodox faith,4 and who had died of the pestilence in the
previous February. She was probably the daughter of Lam
bert de Bure who, with six of his fellow-citizens, had been
deprived of his property and banished forever, after having
been legally convicted of heresy in 1533.5 She was the mother
of several children, poor, and in feeble health. She lived in
retirement, devoted to the education of her children, and
enjoyed the esteem of her friends for her good qualities of

1 Probably by Bucer. She was of a patrician family of Strassburg, and
her brother a great admirer of Calvin and anxious for the match.

2 Herminjard, VI. 167 sq. It seems that the lady had no disposition to
learn French, and asked time for consideration.

3 Not of " une petite ville de la Gueldre," as Bonnet states (I.e., p. 639). Beza
calls him " Storder Leodinensis."

4 Florimond de Rsemond: " Calvin e'pousa la veuve de Jean Lestordeur, natif
de Liege, de religion anabaptiste ; il Va changee a son opinion : elle e'tait appele'e
Idelette de Bure."

5 According to Lenoir of Liege, in " Bulletin," etc., 1860, p. 26.

416 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

head and heart. Calvin visited her frequently as pastor,
and was attracted by her quiet, modest, gentle character.
He found in her what he desired — firm faith, devoted love,
and domestic helpfulness. He calls her " the excellent com
panion of my life," " the ever-faithful assistant of my minis
try," and a " rare woman." l Beza speaks of her as " a grave
and honorable lady." 2

Calvin lived in happy wedlock, but only for nine years.
His wife was taken from him at Geneva, after a protracted
illness, early in April, 1549. He felt the loss very deeply,
and found comfort only in his work. He turned from the
coffin to his study table, and resumed the duties of his office
with quiet resignation and conscientious fidelity as if nothing
had happened. He remained a widower the remaining fifteen
years of his life. " My wife, a woman of rare qualities," he
wrote, " died a year and a half ago, and I have now willingly
chosen to lead a solitary life."

We know much less of Calvin's domestic life than of
Luther's. He was always reticent concerning himself and
his private affairs, while Luther was very frank and demon
strative. In selecting their wives neither of the Reformers
had any regard to the charms of beauty and wealth which
attract most lovers, nor even to intellectual endowment ;
they looked only to moral worth and domestic virtue.
Luther married at the age of forty-one, Calvin at the age of
thirty-one. Luther married a Catholic ex-nun, after having
vainly recommended her to his friend Amsdorf, whom she
proudly refused, looking to higher distinction. He married
her under a sudden impulse, to the consternation of his
friends, in the midst of the disturbances of the Peasants' War,
that he might please his father, tease the pope, and vex the

1 " Optima soda vitas "; "fida ministerii me iadjutrix " (letter to Viret, April
7, 1549) ; " singularis exempli femina," etc.

2 Vita Calv. ( Opera, XXI. 130) : " Viduam Idelletam nomine, gravem honest-
amque feminam, Calvinus ex Buceri consilio uxorem duxit,"

§ 92. CALVIN'S MARRIAGE AND HOME LIFE. 417

devil. Calvin married, like Zwingli, a Protestant widow
with several children ; he married from esteem rather than
affection, after due reflection and the solicitation of friends.

Katherine Luther cut a prominent figure in her husband's
personal history and correspondence, and survived him
several years, which she spent in poverty and affliction.
Idelette de Bure lived in modest retirement, and died in
peace fifteen years before Calvin. Luther submitted as " a
willing servant " to the rule of his " Lord Kathe," but he loved
her dearly, played with his children in childlike simplicity,
addressed to her his last letters, and expressed his estimate
of domestic happiness in the beautiful sentence : " The great
est gift of God to man is a pious, kindly, God-fearing, domes
tic wife." l

Luther's home life was enlivened and cheered by humor,
poetry, and song; Calvin's was sober, quiet, controlled by
the fear of God, and regulated by a sense of duty, but none
the less happy. Nothing can be more unjust than the charge
that Calvin was cold and unsympathetic.2

His whole correspondence proves the reverse. His letters
on the death of his wife to his dearest friends reveal a deep
fountain of tenderness and affection. To Farel he wrote,
April 2, 1549: — 3

1 "Die Welt hat nach Gottes Wort keinen licblicheren Schatz auf Erden, denn
den heiligen Ehestand. Gottes hochste Gabe ist einfromm,freundlich, gottesfurchtig
und hduslich Gemahl haben, mit der dufriedlich lebest, der du darfst alle dein Gut,
ja dein Leib und Leben vertrauen, mit der du Kinderlein zeugest." See Kostlin,
Luther's Leben, p. 578, and Schaff, History of the Chr. Church, VI. §§ 77 and
78, pp. 454 sqq.

2 " Calvin," says J. Bonnet, in his sketch of Idelette de Bure (I.e., p. 637)
"fat grand sans cesser d'etre bon ; il unit les qualite's du cceur aux dons du genie ;
il ressentit et il inspira les plus pures amitie's; il connut, en/in, les fe'licite's domestiques
dans une union trop courte, dont le mystere, a demi re've'le' par sa correspondance,
re'pand un jour me'lancolique et doux sur sa vie." — " There was in Calvin," says
Merle d'Aubigne (VI. 602), "a lofty intellect, a sublime genius, but also that
love of kindred, those affections of the heart, which complete the great man."

3 Opera, Ep. 1171 (fol. 228). The letter is wrongly dated April 11 by
Henry and Bonnet (II. 203), who mistook 11 for Roman figures.

418 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

" Intelligence of my wife's death has perhaps reached you before now.
I do what I can to keep myself from being overwhelmed with grief. My
friends also leave nothing undone that may administer relief to my mental
suffering. When your brother left, her life was all but despaired of. When
the brethren were assembled on Tuesday, they thought it best that we should
join together in prayer. This was done. When Abel, in the name of the
rest, exhorted her to faith and patience, she briefly (for she was now greatly
worn) stated her frame of mind. I afterwards added an exhortation, which
seemed to me appropriate to the occasion. And then, as she had made no
allusion to her children, I, fearing that, restrained by modesty, she might be
feeling an anxiety concerning them, which would cause her greater suffering
than the disease itself, declared in the presence of the brethren, that I should
henceforth care for them as if they were my own. She replied, 'I have
already committed them to the Lord.' When I replied, that that was not to
hinder me from doing my duty, she immediately answered, ' If the Lord shall
care for them, I know they will be commended to you.' Her magnanimity
was so great, that she seemed to have already left the world. About the
sixth hour of the day, on which she yielded up her soul to the Lord, our
brother Bourgouin addressed some pious words to her, and while he was
doing so, she spoke aloud, so that all saw that her heart was raised far above
the world. For these were her words : < O glorious resurrection ! O God of
Abraham, and of all our fathers, in thee have the faithful trusted during so
many past ages, and none of them have trusted in vain. I also will hope.'
These short sentences were rather ejaculated than distinctly spoken. This did
not come from the suggestion of others, but from her own reflections, so that
she made it obvious in few words what were her own meditations. I had to
go out at six o'clock. Having been removed to another apartment after
seven, she immediately began to decline. When she felt her voice suddenly
failing her she said : ' Let us pray ; let us pray. All pray for me.' I had now
returned. She was unable to speak, and her mind seemed to be troubled. I,
having spoken a few words about the love of Christ, the hope of eternal life,
concerning our married life, and her departure, engaged in prayer. In full
possession of her mind, she both heard the prayer, and attended to it. Before
eight she expired, so calmly, that those present could scarcely distinguish
between her life and her death. I at present control my sorrow so that my
duties may not be interfered with. But in the meanwhile the Lord has sent
other trials upon me. Adieu, brother, and very excellent friend. May the
Lord Jesus strengthen you by His Spirit; and may He support me also under
this heavy affliction, which would certainly have overcome me, had not He,
who raises up the prostrate, strengthens the weak, and refreshes the weary,
stretched forth His hand from heaven to me. Salute all the brethren and
your whole family."

To Viret he wrote a few days later, April 7, 1549, as
follows : —

"Although the death of my wife has been exceedingly painful to me, yet
I subdue my grief as well as I can. Friends, also, are earnest in their duty to

§ 92. CALVIN'S MARRIAGE AND HOME LIFE. 419

me. It might be wished, indeed, that they could profit me and themselves
more ; yet one can scarcely say how much I am supported by their attentions.
But you know well enough how tender, or rather soft, my mind is. Had not
a powerful self-control, therefore, been vouchsafed to me, I could not have
borne up so long. And truly mine is no common source of grief. I have
been bereaved of the best companion of my life, of one who, had it been so
ordered, would not only have been the willing sharer of my exile and poverty,
but even of my death.1 During her life she was the faithful helper of my
ministry.

"From her I never experienced the slightest hindrance. She was never
troublesome to me throughout the entire course of her illness; she was more
anxious about her children than about herself. As I feared these private cares
might annoy her to no purpose, I took occasion, on the third day before her
death, to mention that I would not fail in discharging my duty to her children.
Taking up the matter immediately, she said, 'I have already committed them
to God.' When I said that that was not to prevent me from caring for them,
she replied, ' I know you will not neglect what you know has been committed
to God/ Lately, also, when a certain woman insisted that she should talk
with me regarding these matters, I, for the first time, heard her give the
following brief answer: 'Assuredly the principal thing is that they live a
pious and holy life. My husband is not to be urged to instruct them in relig
ious knowledge and in the fear of God. If they be pious, I am sure he will
gladly be a father to them ; but if not, they do not deserve that I should ask
for aught in their behalf.' This nobleness of mind will weigh more with me
than a hundred recommendations. Many thanks for your friendly consolation.

" Adieu, most excellent and honest brother. May the Lord Jesus watch
over and direct yourself and your wife. Present my best wishes to her and
to the brethren."

In reply to this letter, Viret wrote to Calvin, April 10,
1549 : -

" Wonderfully and incredibly have I been refreshed, not by empty rumors
alone, but especially by numerous messengers who have informed me how
you, with a heart so broken and lacerated, have attended to all your duties
even better than hitherto, . . . and that, above all, at a time when grief was
so fresh, and on that account all the more severe, might have prostrated your
mind. Go on then as you have begun, . . . and I pray God most earnestly,
that you may be enabled to do so, and that you may receive daily greater
comfort and be strengthened more and more."

Calvin's character shines in the same favorable light at the
loss of his only son who died in infancy (1542). He thanked
Viret and his wife (he always sends greetings to Viret's wife

1 " QIKC si quid accidisset durius, non exilii tantum ac inopice voluntaria comes,
sed mortis quoque futura erat." Opera, VIII. Ep. 1173 (fol. 230).

420 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

and daughter) for their tender sympathy with him in this
bereavement, stating that Idelette would write herself also
but for her grief. " The Lord," he says, " has dealt us a
severe blow in taking from us our infant son ; but it is our
Father who knows what is best for his children." ! He found
compensation for his want of offspring in the multitude of
his spiritual children. " God has given me a little son, and
taken him away ; but I have myriads of children in the whole
Christian world." 2

Of Calvin's deep sympathy with his friends in domestic
affliction we have a most striking testimony in a private
letter which was never intended for publication. It is the
best proof of his extraordinary fidelity as a pastor. While
he was in attendance at Ratisbon, the pestilence carried away,
among other friends, Louis de Richebourg, who together
with his older brother, Charles, lived in his house at Strass-
burg as a student and pensionnaire, under the tutorship of
Claude Fe*ray, Calvin's dearly beloved assistant. On hearing
the sad intelligence, early in April, 1541, he wrote to his
father — a gentleman from Normandy, probably the lord of
the village de Richebourg between Rouen and Beauvais, but
otherwise unknown to us — a long letter of condolence and
comfort, from which we give the following extracts : 3 —

1 Aug. 19, 1542, at the close. Opera, XI. 430.

2 " Dederat mihi Deus filiolum, abstulit; hoc quoque recenset [Balduin or
Baudouin, a jurisconsult] inter probra liberis me carere. Atgui mihi Jiliorum sunt
jnyriades in toto orbe Christiano." (Ifasponsio ad Balduini Convitia, Geneva,
1661.) Roman writers speak of the sterility of his marriage as a reproach
and judgment. Audin corrects them, but adds (ch. XIX.) that Calvin "shed
no tears " over the loss of his son, and that " God did not permit him to
become a father a second time ! " Bonnet asserts (I.e. 643) that Calvin had
two other children, a daughter and a son, who died likewise in infancy, and
refers to a letter of Calvin to Viret of 1544 ; but this is a mistake, for Calvin,
long after the death of his wife, speaks only of one infant son (filiohis}, and
Colladon, in his biography, says (Opera, XXI. 61) that Idelette de Bure had
one son from him (die eut un fils de lui) .

3 The letter was written in French and translated into Latin by Beza in
his edition of Calvini Epistohe, Genevas, 1575, p. 280 (under the wrong date of

§ 92. CALVIN'S MARRIAGE AND HOME LIFE. 421

" RATISBOX (Month of April), 1541.

"When I first received the intelligence of the death of Claude and of
your son Louis, I was so utterly overpowered (tout esperdu et confus en mon
esprit) that for many days I was fit for nothing but to weep ; and although
I was somehow upheld before the Lord by those aids wherewith He sustains
our souls in affliction, yet among men I was almost a nonentity; so far at
least as regards my discharge of duty, I appeared to myself quite as unfit
for it as if I had been half dead (tw homme demi-morC). On the one hand,
I was sadly grieved that a most excellent and faithful friend [Claude Feray]
had been snatched away from me — a friend with whom I was so familiar,
that none could be more closely united than we were ; on the other hand,
there arose another cause of grief, when I saw the young man, your son,
taken away in the very flower of his age, a youth of most excellent promise,
whom I loved as a son, because, on his part, he showed that respectful affec
tion toward me as he would to another father.

" To this grievous sorrow was still added the heavy and distressing anxiety
we experienced about those whom the Lord had spared to us. I heard that
the whole household were scattered here and there. The danger of Malherbe l
caused me very great misery, as well as the cause of it, and warned me also
as to the rest. I considered that it could not be otherwise but that my wife
must be very much dismayed. Your Charles,2 I assure you, was continually
recurring to my thoughts; for in proportion as he was endowed with that
goodness of disposition which had always appeared in him towards his brother
as well as his preceptor, it never occurred to me to doubt but that he would
be steeped in sorrow and soaked in tears. One single consideration somewhat
relieved me, that he had my brother along with him, who, I hoped, would
prove no small comfort in this calamity; even that, however, I could not
reckon upon, when at the same time I recollected that both were in jeopardy,
and neither of them were yet beyond the reach of danger. Thus, until the
letter arrived which informed me that Malherbe was out of danger, and that
Charles and my brother, together with my wife and the others, were safe,3 I
would have been all but utterly cast down, unless, as I have already men
tioned, my heart was refreshed" in prayer and private meditations, which
are suggested by His Word. . . .

" The son whom the Lord had lent you for a season, He has taken away.
There is no ground, therefore, for those silly and wicked complaints of fool
ish men : O blind death ! 0 hard fate ! 0 implacable daughters of Destiny !

1540). See Opera, XI. 188 sqq. ; Herminjard, VII. 66-73 ; Bonnet-Constable,
I. 222-229. I have used Constable's translation after comparing it with the
French original. The concluding part, however, is only extant in Beza's
Latin version.

1 Probably the youngest of Fe'ray's pupils, a native of Normandy. Her
minjard, VII. 55, note 6.

2 The older son of M. de Richebourg.

3 " Charles et mon frere, avec ma femme et les autres se portoyent bien." This
explains why Calvin did not hurry back to Strassburg earlier than he did.

422 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

0 cruel fortune ! The Lord who had lodged him here for a season, at this
stage of his career has called him away. What the Lord has done, we must,
at the same time, consider has not been done rashly, nor by chance, neither
from having been impelled from without, but by that determinate counsel,
whereby He not only foresees, decrees, and executes nothing but what is just
and upright in itself, but also nothing but what is good and wholesome for us.
Where justice and good judgment reign paramount, there it is impious to
remonstrate. When, however, our advantage is bound up with that goodness,
how great would be the degree of ingratitude not to acquiesce, with a calm
and well-ordered temper of mind, in whatever is the wish of our Father. . . .

" It is God who has sought back from you your son, whom He had com
mitted to you to be educated, on the condition that he might always be His
own. And, therefore, He took him away, because it was both of advantage
to him to leave this world, and by this bereavement to humble you, or to
make trial of your patience. If you do not understand the advantage of this,
without delay, first of all, setting aside every other object of consideration,
ask of God that He may show you. Should it be His will to exercise you
still farther, by concealing it from you, submit to that will, that you may be
come wiser than the weakness of thine own understanding can ever attain to.

"In what regards your son, if you bethink yourself how difficult it is, in
this most deplorable age to maintain an upright course through life, you will
judge him to be blessed, who, before encountering so many coming dangers
which already were hovering over him, and to be encountered in his day and
generation, was so early delivered from them all. He is like one who has set
sail upon a stormy and tempestuous sea, and before he has been carried out
into the deeps, gets in safety to the secure haven. Nor, indeed, is long life
to be reckoned so great a benefit of God, that we can lose anything, when
separated only for the space of a few years, we are introduced to a life which
is far better. Now, certainly, because the Lord Himself, who is the Father
of us all, had willed that Louis should be put among the children as a son of
His adoption, He bestowed this benefit upon you, out of the multitude of His
mercies, that you might reap the excellent fruit of your careful education
before his death ; whence also you might know your interest in the blessings
that belonged to you, ' I will be thy God, and the God of thy seed.'

"From his earliest boyhood, so far as his years allowed, Louis was
grounded in the best studies, and had already made such a competent profi
ciency and progress, that we entertained great hope of him for the future.
His manners and behavior had met with the approval of all good men. If at
any time he fell into error, he not only patiently suffered the word of admo
nition, but also that of reproof, and proved himself teachable and obedient,
and willing to hearken to advice. . . . That, however, which we rate most
highly in him was, that he had imbibed so largely the principles of piety,
that he had not merely a correct and true understanding of religion, but had
also been faithfully imbued with the unfeigned fear and reverence of God.

" This exceeding kindness of God toward your offspring ought with good
reason to prevail more effectually with you in soothing the bitterness of
death, than death itself have power to inflict grief upon you.

§ 92. CALVIN'S MARRIAGE AND HOME LIFE. 423

" With reference to my own feelings, if your sons had never come hither
at all, I should never have been grieved on account of the death of Claude
and Louis. Never, however, shall this most crushing sorrow, which I suffer
on account of both, so overcome me, as to reflect with grief upon that day on
which they were driven hither by the hand of God to us, rather than led by
any settled purpose of their own, when that friendship commenced which has
not only continued undiminished to the last, but which, from day to day, was
rather increased and confirmed. Whatever, therefore, may have been the
kind or model of education they were in search of, I rejoice that they lived
under the same roof with me. And since it was appointed them to die, I
rejoice also that they died under my roof, where they rendered back their
souls to God more composedly, and in greater circumstances of quiet, than
if they had happened to die in those places where they would have experi
enced greater annoyance from the importunity of those by whom they ought
to have been assisted, than from death itself. On the contrary, it was in the
midst of pious exhortations, and while calling upon the name of the Lord,
that these sainted spirits fled from the communion of their brethren here to
the bosom of Christ. Nor would I desire now to be free from all sorrow at
the cost of never having known them. Their memory will ever be sacred
to me to the end of my days, and I am persuaded that it will also be sweet
and comforting.

"But what advantage, you will say, is it to me to have had a son of so
much promise, since he has been torn away from me in the first flower of his
youtli ? As if, forsooth, Christ had not merited, by His death, the supreme
dominion over the living and the dead! And if we belong to Him (as we
ought), why may He not exercise over us the power of life and of death?
However brief, therefore, either in your opinion or in mine, the life of your
son may have been, it ought to satisfy us that he has finished the course
which the Lord had marked out for him.

" Moreover, we may not reckon him to have perished in the flower of his
age, who had grown ripe in the sight of the Lord. For I consider all to have
arrived at maturity who are summoned away by death ; unless, perhaps, one
would contend with Him, as if -He can snatch away any one before his time.
•This, indeed, holds true of every one ; but in regard to Louis, it is yet more
certain on another and more peculiar ground. For he had arrived at that
age, when, by true evidences, he could prove himself a member of the body
of Christ : having put forth this fruit, he was taken from us and transplanted.
Yes, instead of this transient and vanishing shadow of life, he has regained
the real immortality of being.

"Nor can you consider yourself to have lost him, whom you will recover
in the blessed resurrection in the kingdom of God. For they had both so
lived and so died, that I cannot doubt but they are now with the Lord. Let
us, therefore, press forward toward this goal which they have reached. There
can be no doubt but that Christ will bind together both them and us in the
same inseparable society, in that incomparable participation of His own glory.
Beware, therefore, that you do not lament your son as lost, whom you ac
knowledge to be preserved by the Lord, that he may remain yours forever,

424 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

who, at the pleasure of His own will, lent him to you only for a sea
son. . . .

" Neither do I insist upon your laying aside all grief. Nor, in the school of
Christ, do we learn any such philosophy as requires us to put off that common
humanity with which God has endowed us, that, being men, we should be
turned into stones.1 These considerations reach only so far as this, that you
do set bounds, and, as it were, temper even your most reasonable sadness ,
that, having shed those tears which were due to nature and to fatherly affec
tion, you by no means give way to senseless wailing. Nor do I by any means
interfere because I am distrustful of your prudence, firmness, or high-minded-
ness; but only lest I might here be wanting, and come short in my duty to
you.

" Moreover, I have requested Melanchthon and Bucer that they would also
add their letters to mine, because I entertained the hope that it would not
be unacceptable that they too should afford some evidence of their good-will
toward you.

"Adieu, most distinguished sir, and my much-respected in the Lord. May
Christ the Lord keep you and your family, and direct you all with His own
Spirit, until you may arrive where Louis and Claude have gone before."

1 " Neque hanc philosophiam discimus in schola Christi, ut earn quam nobis
indidit humanitatem exuendo, ex hominibus lapides Jiamus." This shows how far
Calvin was from heathen stoicism.

CHAPTER XII.

CALVIN'S SECOND SOJOURN AND LABORS AT GENEVA.

1541-1564.

The sources on this and the following chapters in § 81, p. 347.

§ 93. The State of Geneva after the expulsion of the
Reformers.

I. The correspondence in Opera, vols. X. and XL, and HERMINJARD, vols. V.,

VI., and VII.— Annal. Calv., XXI. 235-282.— The Chronicles of ROSET
and BONIVARD; the histories of SPON, GABEREL, ROGET, etc.

II. HENRY, I. ch. XIX. — STAHELIN, I. 283-299. — DYER, 113-123. — KAAIP-
SCHULTE, I. 342 sqq. — MERLE D'AUBIGNE, bk. XI. chs. XVIII. (vol. VI.
610 sqq.) and XIX. (vol. VII. 1 sqq.).

C. A. CORNELIUS (Cath.) : Die Ruckkehr Calvins nach Genf. Munchen, 1889.
Continuation of his essay, Die Verbannung Calvins ans Genf. Munchen,
1886. Both in the Transactions of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.

THE answer to Sadolet was one of the means of saving
Geneva from the grasp of popery, and endearing Calvin to
the friends of freedom. But there were other causes which
demanded his recall. Internal disturbances followed his ex
pulsion, and brought the little republic to the brink of ruin.

Calvin was right in predicting a short regime to his ene
mies. In less than a year they were demoralized and split
up into factions. In the place of the expelled Reformers,
two native preachers and two from Bern were elected on the
basis of the Bernese customs, but they were below medioc
rity, and not fit for the crisis. The supremacy of the State
was guarded. Foreigners who could not show a good practi
cal reason for their residence were banished ; among them,
even Saunier and Cordier, the rectors of the schools who
faithfully adhered to the Reformers.

425

426 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

There were three main parties in Geneva, with subdivis
ions.

1. The government party was controlled by the syndics
of 1538 and other enemies of the Reformers. They were
called Articulants or, by a popular nickname, Artichauds,1
from the twenty-one articles of a treaty with Bern, which
had been negotiated and signed by three counsellors and
deputies of the city — Ami de Chapeaurouge, Jean Lullin,
and Monathon. The government subjected the Church to the
State, and was protected by Bern, but unable to maintain
order. Tumults and riots multiplied in the streets ; the
schools were ruined by the expulsion of the best teachers ;
the pulpit lost its power ; the new preachers became objects
of contempt or pity ; pastoral care was neglected ; vice and
immorality increased ; the old licentiousness and frivolities,
dancing, gambling, drunkenness, masquerades, indecent
songs, adulteries, reappeared; persons went naked through
the streets to the sound of drums and fifes.

Moreover, the treaty with Bern, when it became known,
was very unpopular because it conceded to Bern the rights
of sovereignty. The Council of Two Hundred would not
submit to it because it sacrificed their liberties and good
customs. But the judges of Bern decided that the Genevese
must sign the treaty and pay the costs. This created a great
commotion. The people cried " treason," and demanded the
arrest of the three deputies who had been outwitted by the
diplomacy of Bern, but they made their escape ; whereupon
they were condemned to death as forgers and rebels. The
discontent extended to the pastors who had been elected in
the place of Farel and Calvin.

Within two years after the banishment of the Reformers,
the four syndics who had decreed it came to grief. Jean
Philippe, the captain-general of the city and most influential

1 Dyer, p. 113, miscalls them Artiohokes, because, as he fancies, they took
" this plant for their device."

§ 93. GENEVA AFTER EXPULSION OF REFORMERS. 427

leader of the Artichauds, but a man of violent passions, was
beheaded for homicide, and as a mover of sedition, June 10,
1540. Two others, Chapeaurouge and Lullin, were con
demned to death as forgers and rebels ; the fourth, Rich-
ardet, died in consequence of an injury which he received
in the attempt to escape justice. Such a series of mis
fortunes was considered a nemesis of Providence, and gave
the death-blow to the anti-reform party.

2. The party of the Roman Catholics raised its head after
the expulsion of the Reformers, and received for a short time
great encouragement from the banished bishop Pierre de la
Baume, whom Paul III. had made a cardinal, and from the
Letter of Cardinal Sadolet. A number of priests and monks
returned from France and Savoy, but the Answer of Calvin
destroyed all the hopes and prospects of the Romanists, and
the government showed them no favor.

3. The third party was friendly to the Reformers. It
reaped all the benefit of the blunders and misfortunes of the
other two parties, and turned them to the best account. Its
members were called by their opponents Gruiller mains, after
Master Guillaume (Farel). They were led by Perrin, Por-
ral, Pertemps, and Sept. They were united, most active,
and had a definite end in view — the restoration of the Refor
mation. They kept up a correspondence with the banished
Reformers, especially with Farel in Neuchatel, who coun
selled and encouraged them. They were suspected of French
sympathies and want of patriotism, but retorted by charging
the government with subserviency to Bern. They were in
clined to extreme measures. Calvin exhorted them to be
patient, moderate, and forgiving.

As the Artichauds declined, the Guillermains increased
in power over the people. The vacant posts of the late syn
dics were filled from their ranks. The new magistrates
assumed a bold tone of independence towards Bern, and
insisted on the old franchises of Geneva. It is curious that

428 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

they were encouraged by a letter of the Emperor Charles V.,
who thus unwittingly aided the cause of Calvin.1

The way was now prepared for the recall of Calvin. The
best people of Geneva looked to him as the saviour of their city.
His name meant order, peace, reform in Church and State.

Even the Artichauds, overpowered by public opinion, pro
posed in a general assembly of citizens, June 17, 1540, the
resolution to restore the former status, and spoke loudly
against popery. Two of the new preachers, Marcourt and
Morland, resigned Aug. 10, and returned to Bern. The
other two, Henri de la Mare and Jacques Bernard, humbly
besought the favor of Calvin, and begged him to return. A
remarkable tribute from his rivals and enemies.2

§ 94. Calvin's Recall to Geneva.
Literature in § 93, especially the Correspondence and Registers.

Calvin did not forget Geneva. He proved his interest
in her welfare by his Answer to Sadolet. But he had no
inclination to return, and could only be induced to do so by
unmistakable indications of the will of Providence.

He had found a place of great usefulness in a city where
he could act as mediator between Germany and France, and
benefit both countries ; his Sunday services were crowded ;
his theological lectures attracted students from France and
other countries ; he had married a faithful wife, and enjoyed

1 "Es macht einen eigenthiimlichen Eindruck" says Kampschulte (I. 365),
" Karl V. hier fur den Sieg eines Mannes mitthdtig zu sehen, dessen Wirksamkeit,
icie kaum eine andere, dazu beigetragen hat, die Grundlagen seiner Macht zu
nntergraben."

3 Bernard wrote a letter to Calvin, Feb. 6, 1541 (Herminjard, VII. 23), in
which he says: " Veni ergo^ venerande mi pater in Christo: noster es perfecto.
Te enim nobis donavit Dominus Dens. Suspirant etiam post te omnes. . . . Faxit
Dominus Jesus, ut velox adventus tuus sit ad nos! Vale, ecclesiceque digneris
snccurrere nostrce. Alioqui requiret de manu tua sanguinem nostrum Dominus Deus.
Dedit enim te speculatorem domui Israel quce apud nos est" Calvin answered,
March 1, 1541, that he was very reluctant to return to Geneva, but would
obey the voice of the Church. Herminjard, VII. 38-40.

§ 94. CALVIN'S RECALL TO GENEVA. 429

a peaceful home. The government of Strassburg appreciated
him more and more, and his colleagues wished to retain him.
Melanchthon thought he could spare him less at the Collo
quies of Worms and Ratisbon than anybody else. Looking
to Geneva he could, from past experience, expect nothing
but severe and hard trials. " There is no place in the world/'
he wrote to Viret, " which I fear more ; not because I hate
it, but because I feel unequal to the difficulties which await
me there." l He called it an abyss from which he shrank
back much more now than he had done in 1536. Indeed,
he was not mistaken in his fears, for his subsequent life was
an unbroken struggle. We need not wonder then that he
refused call upon call, and requested Farel and Viret to
desist from their efforts to allure him away.2

At the same time, he was determined to obey the will of
God as soon as it would be made clear to him by unmistak
able indications of Providence. " When I remember," he
wrote to Farel, " that in this matter I am not my own mas
ter, I present my heart as a sacrifice and offer it up to the
Lord." 3 A very characteristic sentence, which reveals the
soul of his piety. A seal of Calvin bears this motto, and
the emblem is a hand presenting a heart to God. Seven-

1 March 1, 1541 (from Ulm on his journey to Ratisbon): " Non aliter
respondeo quam quod semper solitus sum : Nullum esse locum sub ccelo quern magis
reformidem, non quia oderim, sed quoniam tot difficultates illic mihi propositas video,
quibus snperandis sentio me longe esse imparem. Quoties superiorum temporum
subit recordatio, facere neqiteo quin toto pectore exhorrescam, si cogar me iterum
antiquis illis certaminibus objicere. Si mihi cum ecclesia ilia tantum esset negocium,
unimo essem quietiore ; certe minus terrerer. Sed vicinos [allusion to Bern] cogito,
qui mihi olim tantum molestice exhibuerunt." Opera, XI. 167 ; Herminjard,
VII. 43.

2 Dyer (p. 121) and Kampschulte (I. 370) suspect, without any reason,
that Calvin, in his repeated refusals, was influenced by the unworthy motive
to humble the pride of the Genevese. What more could they do than bom
bard him with petitions and deputations ? And this they did months before
he accepted the call.

3 " Cor meum velut mactatum Domino in sacrificium qffero." Oct. 24, 1540.
Opera, XI. 100 ; Herminjard, VI. 339. Henry has appropriately chosen this
sentence as the motto for his biography.

430 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

teen years later, when he looked back upon that critical?
period of his life, he expressed the same view. " Although
the welfare of that Church," he says, " was so dear to me,
that I could without difficulty sacrifice my life for it; yet
my timidity presented to me many reasons of excuse for
declining to take such a heavy burden on my shoulders.
But the sense of duty prevailed, and led me to return to the
flock from which I had been snatched away. I did this with
sadness, tears, and great anxiety and distress of mind, the
Lord being my witness, and many pious persons who would
gladly have spared me that pain, if not the same fear had
shut their mouth." l He mentions especially Martin Bucer,
" that excellent servant of Christ," who threatened him with
the example of Jonah; as Farel, on Calvin's first visit to
Geneva, had threatened him with the wrath of God.

His friends in Geneva, the Council and the people, were
convinced that Calvin alone could save the city from anarchy,
and they made every effort to secure his return. His recall
was first seriously discussed in the Council early in 1539,
again in February, 1540, and decided upon Sept. 21, 1540.
Preparatory steps were taken to secure the co-operation of
Bern, Basel, Zurich, and Strassburg. On the 13th of Octo
ber, Michel du Bois, an old friend of Calvin, was sent by
the Large Council with a letter to him, and directed to
press the invitation by oral representation. Without wait
ing for an answer, other petitions and deputations were
forwarded. On the 19th of October the Council of Two
Hundred resolved to use every effort for the attainment of
that object. Ami Pen-in and Louis Dufour were sent (Oct.
21 and 22) as deputies, with a herald, to Strassburg " to fetch
Master Calvin." Twenty dollars gold (ecus au soleil) were
voted, on the 27th, for expenses.2 The Registres of that
month are full of actions concerning the recall of "the

1 Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms (written in 1557), Opera,
XXXI. 27. 2 Annal. 266 sqq.; Herminjard, VI. 331-335.

§ 94. CALVIN'S KECALL TO GENEVA. 431

learned and pious Mr. Calvin." No more complete vindica
tion of the cause of the Reformers could be imagined.

Farel's aid was also solicited. With incomparable self-
denial he pardoned the ingratitude of the Genevese in not
recalling him, and made every exertion to secure the return
of his younger friend, whom he had first compelled by moral
force to stop at Geneva. He bombarded him with letters.
He even travelled from Neuchatel to Strassburg, and spent
two days there, pressing him in person and trying to per
suade him, as well as Capito and Bucer, of the absolute
necessity of his return to Geneva, which, in his opinion, was
the most important spot in the world.

Dufour arrived at Strassburg in November, called upon
the senate, followed Calvin to Worms, where he was in
attendance on the Colloquy, and delivered the formal letter
of invitation, dated Oct. 22, and signed by the syndics and
Council of Geneva. It concludes thus : " On behalf of our
Little, Great, and General Councils (all of which have
strongly urged us to take this step), we pray you very affec
tionately that you will be pleased to come over to us, and to
return to your former post and ministry : and we hope that
by God's help this course will be a great advantage for the
furtherance of the holy gospel, seeing that our people very
much desire you, and we will so deal with you that you
shall have reason to be satisfied." The letter was fastened
with a seal bearing the motto: "Post tenebras spero lucem."

Calvin was thus most urgently and most honorably recalled
by the united voice of the Council, the ministers, and the
people of that city which had unjustly banished him three
years before.

He was moved to tears by these manifestations of regard
and confidence, and began to waver. But the deputies of
Strassburg at Worms, under secret instruction from their gov
ernment, entered a strong protest against his leaving. Bucer,
Capito, Sturm, and Grynseus, when asked for advice, decided

432 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

that Calvin was indispensable to Strassburg as the head of
the French Church which represented Protestant France ;
as a theological teacher who attracted students from Ger
many, France, and Italy, to send them back to their own
countries as evangelists ; and as a helper in making the
Church of Strassburg a seminary of ministers of the gospel.
No one besides Melanchthon could be compared with him.
Geneva was indeed an important post, and the gate to France
and Italy, but uncertain, and liable to be involved again in
political complications which might destroy the evangelical
labors of Calvin. The pastors and senators of Strassburg,
urged by the churches of Zurich and Basel, came at last to
the conclusion to consent to Calvin's return after the Collo
quy of Worms, but only for a season, hoping that he may
soon make their city his final home for the benefit of the
whole Church.1

Thus two cities, we might almost say, two nations, were
contending for the possession of " the Theologian." His
whole future life, and a considerable chapter of Church his
tory, depended on the decision. Under these circumstances
he could make no definite promise, except that he would pay
a visit to Geneva after the close of the Colloquy, on
condition of getting the consent of Strassburg and Bern.
He also prescribed, like a victorious general, the terms of
surrender, namely, the restoration of Church discipline.

He had previously advised that Viret be called from Lau
sanne. This was done in Dec. 31, 1540, with the permission
of Bern, but only for half a year. Viret arrived in Geneva
Jan. 17, 1541. His persuasive sermons were well attended,
and the magistrates showed great reverence for the Word of
God ; but he found so much and such difficult work in church

1 See the letters signed by Capito, Hedio, Bucer, Sturm, Bedrotus,
Grynseus (probably written by Bucer), October and November, 1540, in Her-
minjard, VI. 335 and 356 sqq., and the letter of the Council of Strassburg to
the Council of Geneva, Sept. 1, 1541, vol. VII. 227.

§ 95. CALVIN'S RETURN TO GENEVA. 433

and school, in the hospital and the poorhouse, that he urged
Calvin to come soon, else he must withdraw or perish.

On the 1st of May, 1541, the General Council recalled, in
due form, the sentence of banishment of April 23, 1538,
and solemnly declared that every citizen considered Calvin,
Farel, and Saunier to be honorable men, and true servants
of God.1 On the 26th of May the senate sent another press
ing request to Strassburg, Zurich, and Basel to aid Geneva
in securing the return of Calvin.2

It is astonishing what an amount of interest this question
of Calvin's return excited throughout Switzerland and
Germany. It was generally felt that the fate of Geneva
depended on Calvin, and that the fate of evangelical religion
in France and Italy depended on Geneva. Letters arrived
from individuals and corporations. Farel continued to thun
der, and reproached the Strassburgers for keeping Calvin
back. He was indignant at Calvin's delay. " Will you
wait," he wrote him, "till the stones call thee?"

§ 95. Calvin's Return to Geneva. 1541.

In the middle of June, Calvin left Regensburg, before the
close of the Colloquy, much to the regret of Melanchthon ;
and after attending to his affairs in Strassburg, he set out for
Switzerland. The Genevese sent Eustace Vincent, a mounted
herald, to escort him, and voted thirty-six ecus for expenses
(Aug. 26).

The Strassburgers requested him to retain his right of
citizenship, and the annual revenues of a prebend, which they
had assigned him as the salary of his theological professor
ship. " He gladly accepted," says Beza, " the former mark
of respect, but could never be induced to accept the latter,

1 " Pour gens de bien et de Dieu." Annal. 278.

2 See the letters of the Council of Geneva to the Pastors of Zurich in
Opera, XI. 220 sqq., and in Herminjard, VII. 129 sqq.

434 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

since the care of riches occupied his mind the least of any
thing."

Bucer, in the name of the pastors of Strassburg, gave him
a letter to the Syndics and Council of Geneva, Sept. 1, 1541,
in which he says : " Now he comes at last, Calvin, that elect
and incomparable instrument of God, to whom no other in
our age may be compared, if at all there can be the question
of another alongside of him." He added that such a highly
favored man Strassburg could only spare for a season, on con
dition of his certain return.1 The Council of Strassburg wrote
to the Council of Geneva on the same day, expressing the
hope that Calvin may soon return to them for the benefit of
the Church universal.2 The Senate of Geneva, in a letter
of thanks (Sept. 17, 1541), expressed the determination to
keep Calvin permanently in their city, where he could be as
useful to the Church universal as at Strassburg.3

Calvin visited his friends in Basel, who affect ionatety
commended him to Bern and Geneva (Sept. 4).4 Bern
was not very favorable to Calvin and the clerical ascend
ency in Geneva, but gave him a safe-conduct through her
territory.

At Soleure (Solothurn) he learned that Farel was deposed,
without a trial, by the magistracy of Neuchatel, because he
had attacked a person of rank from the pulpit for scanda
lous conduct. He, therefore, turned from the direct route,
and spent some days with his friend, trying to relieve him
of the difficulty. He did not succeed at once, but his
efforts were supported by Zurich, Strassburg, Basel, and

1 The letter is in Latin with a French translation by Viret, Opera, X. 271 ;
Herminjard, VII. 231-233. " Venit tandem ad vos Calvinus, eximium profecto
et rarissimum, cui vix secundum, si tauten secundum ullum, organum Christi hodie
extat. . . . Venit ergo, dimissus ratione ea quam noster senatus perscribit, ut
nhnirum redeat."

2 Herminjard, VII. 227-230, in Latin and French.

3 Herminjard, VII. 253-255; Opera, XI. 268.
< Opera, XI. 274.

§ 95. CALVIN'S RETURN TO GENEVA. 435

Bern ; and the seignory of Neuch&tel resolved to keep Farel,
who continued to labor there till his death.1

Calvin wrote to the Council of Geneva from Neuchatel on
Sept. 7, explaining the reason of his delay.2 The next day
he proceeded to Bern and delivered letters from Strassburg
and Basel.

He was expected at Geneva on the 9th of September, but
did not arrive, it seems, before the 13th. He wished to
avoid a noisy reception, for which he had no taste.3 But
there is no doubt that his arrival caused general rejoicing
among the people.4

The Council provided for the Reformer a house and gar
den in the Rue des Chanoines near St. Peter's Church,5 and

1 See the correspondence in Herminjard, VII. 242 sqq.

2 Herminjard, VII. 239. The letter was received at Geneva, Sept. 12.
See Herminjard's note 6 on p. 240.

3 He says, in the Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms : " I have no
intention of showing myself, and making a noise in the world." Kampschulte
goes beyond the record when he asserts (I. 380, 381): "Fur den Empfang
eines F'drsten hdtte nicht mehr Theilnahme bewiesen werden kb'nnen. . . . Am
13ten Sept. hielt er unter dem Jubel der Bevolkerung seinen feierlichen Einzug in
Genf." Perhaps he followed here Stahelin, who says (I. 316) : " Mit unglaub-
licher Begeisterung, wie im Triumphe, wurde er von dem Volk und dem Magistrate
empfangen." There is no record of such a triumphant public entrance. See
Beza and Colladon in the next note. Roget and Merle d'Aubigne (VII.
62 sq.) deny the fact of a popular ovation.

4 Beza (XXI. 131) : " Caluinus XIII. Septcmbris anno Domini MDXL1
Generam regressus est, summa cum universi populi ac senatus inprimis singulare
Dei erfj a se benejicium serio turn agnoscentis congratulatione." Colladon (XXI.
64) : " Calvin fut tellement receu de singuliere affection par ce povre peuple recog-
noissant sa fante, et qui estoit affame d'ouir son fidele Pasteur, qu'on Tie cessa
point qu^il ne fut arreste pour tousiours."

5 It was the house of Sieur de Fresneville, between the house of Bonivard,
on the west, and that of Abbe de Bonmont, on the east, where Calvin lived
from 1543 till his death. But as this house was not ready on his arrival, he
lodged for a while in an adjoining house of the abbot of Bonmont, which was
rebuilt in 1708 (No. 13 Rue des Chanoines, now called Rue de Calvin) and
passed into the possession of Adrien Naville, president of the Socie'td Evan-
gelique. The second house (No. 11) remained a Reformed parsonage till
1700; in 1834 it was acquired by the Roman Catholic clergy, who assigned
it to the Sisters of Mercy of Vincent de Paul, but it is now owned by the State.
See Th. Heyer, De la maison de Calvin, in the " Mcmoires d'Archeologie," IX.
301-408. I have consulted Mr. Ed. Naville and Mr. Ed. Favre of Geneva, who
confirmed the above statements.

436 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

promised him (Oct. 4), in consideration of his great learning
and hospitality to strangers, a fixed salary of fifty gold dollars,
or five hundred florins, besides twelve measures of wheat and
two casks of wine.1 It also voted him a new suit of broad
cloth, with furs for the winter. This provision was liberal
for those days, yet barely sufficient for the necessary ex
penses of the Reformer and the claims on his hospitality.
Hence the Council made him occasional presents for extra
services ; but he declined them whenever he could do without
them. He lived in the greatest simplicity compatible with
his position. A pulpit in St. Peter's was prepared for him
upon a broad, low pillar, that the whole congregation might
more easily hear him.

The Council sent three horses and a carriage to bring
Calvin's wife and furniture. It took twenty-two days for the
escort from Geneva to Strassburg and back (from Sept. 17
to Oct. 8) .2

On the 13th of September Calvin appeared before the
Syndics and the Council in the Town Hall, delivered the
letters from the senators and pastors of Strassburg and Basel,
and apologized for his long delay. He made no complaint
and demanded no punishment of his enemies, but asked for
the appointment of a commission to prepare a written order
of church government and discipline. The Council complied
with this request, and resolved to retain him permanently,
and to inform the Senate of Strassburg of this intention.
Six prominent laymen, four members of the Little Council,

1 " Cinq cens florins, douze coppes defroment et deux bossot de vin." Annal.
284. Five hundred florins of Geneva were equivalent to about four thousand
francs at the present standard of value. This is the estimate of Franklin and
of Merle d'Aubigne, VII. 69. Galiffe (Quelq. pages d'hist. p. 89, as quoted by
Kampschulte, I. 388, note 3) estimates Calvin's annual income at 9 to 10,000
francs of our money ($2000). A syndic at that time received only 100, a
counsellor 25 francs, according to the same authority.

2 Herminjard, VII. 289, note : " On paya au voiturier, Emoz Daiz, pour
22 journ&es 1 florins, 4 sols."

§ 95. CALVIN'S RETURN TO GENEVA. 437

two members of the Large Council, — Pertemps, Perrin, Roset,
Lambert, Goulaz, and Porral, — were appointed to draw up
the ecclesiastical ordinances in conference with the ministers.1

On Sept. 16, Calvin wrote to Farel : " Thy wish is granted,
I am held fast here. May God give his blessing." 2

He desired to retain Viret and to secure Farel as perma
nent co-laborers ; but in this he was disappointed — Viret
being needed at Lausanne, and Farel at Neuch&tel. By spe
cial permission of Bern, however, Viret was allowed to remain
with him till July of the next year. His other colleagues
were rather a hindrance than a help to him, as " they had no
zeal and very little learning, and could not be trusted."
Nearly the whole burden of reconstructing the Church of
Geneva rested on his shoulders. It was a formidable task.

Never was a man more loudly called by government and
people, never did a man more reluctantly accept the call,
never did a man more faithfully and effectively fulfil the
duties of the call than John Calvin when, in obedience to
the voice of God, he settled a second time at Geneva to live
and to die at this post of duty.

" Of all men in the world," says one of his best biogra
phers and greatest admirers,3 " Calvin is the one who most
worked, wrote, acted, and prayed for the cause which he had
embraced. The coexistence of the sovereignty of God and
the freedom of man is assuredly a mystery ; but Calvin never
supposed that because God did all, he personally had nothing
to do. He points out clearly the twofold action, that of God
and that of man. 4 God,' said he, ' after freely bestowing his

1 Reg. du Conseil, vol. XXXV. 324, quoted in Annal. 282, and by Hermin-
jard; Calvin's letter to Farel, Sept. 16, 1541, in Opera, XI. 281, and Hermin-
jard, VII. 249-250.

2 " Quod bene vertat Deus, hie retentus sum, ut vokbas. Superest ut Viretum
quoque mecum retineam, quern a me avelli nullo modo patiar. Tine quoque omni-
umque fratrum partes me hie adjuvare, nisi vultis me frustra excruciari, ac sine
comrnodo esse rniserrimum." Herminjard, VII. 249.

3 Merle d'Aubignc, VII. 70.

438 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

grace on us, forthwith demands of us a reciprocal acknowl
edgment. When he said to Abraham, " I am thy God," it
was an offer of his free goodness ; but he adds at the same
time what he required of him : " Walk before me, and be
thou perfect.'1 This condition is tacitly annexed to all thr
promises. They are to be to us as spurs, inciting us to pro
mote the glory of God.' And elsewhere he says, c This
doctrine ought to create new vigor in all your members,
so that }rou may be fit and alert, with might and main, to
follow the call of God.' " 1

§ 96. The First Years after the Return.

Calvin entered at once upon his labors, and continued
them without interruption for twenty-three years — till his
death, May 27, 1564,

The first years were full of care and trial, as he had antici
pated. His duties were more numerous and responsible
than during his first sojourn. Then he was supported by
the older Farel ; now he stood at the head of the Church at
Geneva, though yet a young man of thirty-two. He had
to reorganize the Church, to introduce a constitution and
order of worship, to preach, to teach, to settle controversies,
to conciliate contending parties, to provide for the instruc
tion of youth, to give advice even in purely secular affairs.
No wonder that he often felt discouraged and exhausted, but
trust in God, and a sense of duty kept him up.

Viret was of great service to him, but he was called back
to Lausanne in July. 1542. His other colleagues — Jacques
Bernard, Henri de la Mare, and Aime Champereau — were
men of inferior ability, and not reliable. In 1542 four
new pastors were appointed, — Pierre Blanchet, Matthias d
Geneston, Louis Trappereau, and Philippe Ozias (or Ozeas)
In 1544 Geneva had twelve pastors, six of them for th<
county Churches. Calvin gradually trained a corps of enthu-

1 Comments on<2 Cor. 7:1; Gen. 17 : 1.

§ 96. THE FIRST YEARS AFTER THE RETURN. 439

siastic evangelists. Farel and Viret visited Geneva on im
portant occasions. For his last years, lie had a most able and
learned colleague in his friend Theodore Beza.

He pursued a wise and conciliatory course, which is all
the more creditable to him when we consider the stern sever
ity of his character and system. He showed a truly Chris
tian forbearance to his former enemies, and patience with
the weakness of his colleagues.1

" I will endeavor," he wrote to Bucer, in a long letter, Oct. 15, 1541, " to
cultivate a good understanding and harmony with my neighbors, and also
brotherly kindness (if they will allow me), with as much fidelity and diligence
as I possibly can. So far as it depends on me, I shall give no ground of
offence to any one. ... If in any way I do not answer your expectation,
you know that I am in your power, and subject to your authority. Admon
ish me, chastise me, exercise towards me all the authority of a father over
his son. Pardon my haste. ... I am entangled in so many employments
that I am almost beside myself/' '2

To Myconius of Basel he wrote, March 14, 1542 : —

"I value the public peace and concord so highly, that I lay restraint
upon myself; and this praise even the adversaries are compelled to award
to me.3 This feeling prevails to such an extent, that, from day to day, those
who were once open enemies have become friends ; others I conciliate by
courtesy, and I feel that I have been in some measure successful, although
not everywhere and on all occasions.

" On my arrival it was in my power to have disconcerted our enemies most
triumphantly, entering with full sail among the whole of that tribe who had
done the mischief. I have abstained; if I had liked, I could daily, not
merely with impunity, but with the approval of very many, have used sharp
reproof. I forbear ; even with the most scrupulous care do I avoid every
thing of the kind, lest even by some slight word I should appear to persecute
any individual, much less all of them at once. May the Lord confirm me in
this disposition of mind/'4

1 " Dfese milde, rersohnlicJie Haltung nach seiner Ruckkehr bildet eines der
schonatf.n Blatter in der Geschichte Calvin's." So says Kampschulte (I. 390), but
lie unjustly diminishes the praise by adding: " Noch hoher w'tirde die Nach-
rrelt sein Verdienst anschlagen, ivenn er sich selbst desselben weniger bewusst
gewesen ware." How could he be unconscious of his intention? And he
spoke of it not boastingly, but modestly, like Paul.

'2 ITerminjard, VII. 293; Opera, XI. 299; Bonnet-Constable, I. 269.

3 " Tanti enim mihi est publica pax et concordia, ut manum rnihi injiciam :
atque Jtanc laudem mihi adversarii i])si tribuere coquntar."

4 Herminjard, VII. 439; Bonnet-Constable, I. 291.

440 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

He met at first with no opposition, but hearty co-operation
among the people. About a fortnight after his arrival he
presented a formula of the ecclesiastical order to the Small
Council. Objection was made to the monthly celebration of
the Lord's Supper, instead of the custom of celebrating it
only four times a year. Calvin, who strongly favored even
a more frequent celebration, yielded his better judgment "in
consideration of the weakness of the times," and for the sake
of harmony. With this modification, the Small Council
adopted the constitution Oct. 27 ; the Large Council con
firmed it Nov. 9 ; and the general assembly of the citizens
ratified it, by a very large majority, in St. Peter's Church,
the 20th of November, 1541. The small minority, however,
included some of the leading citizens who were opposed to
ecclesiastical discipline. The Articles, after the insertion of
some trifling amendments and additions, were definitely
adopted by the three councils, Jan. 2, 1542.1

This was a great victory ; for the ecclesiastical ordinances,
which we shall consider afterwards, laid a solid foundation
for a strong and well-regulated evangelical church.

Calvin preached at St. Peter's, Viret at St. Gervais. The
first services were of a penitential character, and their solem
nity was enhanced by the fearful ravages of the pestilence
in the neighboring cities. An extraordinary celebration of
the holy communion on the first Sunday in November, and
a weekly day of humiliation and prayer were appointed to
invoke the mercy of God upon Geneva and the whole Church.

The second year after his return was very trying. The
pestilence, which in 1541 had been raging in Strassburg and

1 Registers, Oct. 25 and 27, Nov. 9 and 20, 1541 ; and Jan. 2, 1542. Opera,
X. 15; XL 370; XXI. 287, 289, 290. The Registers du Cornell of Jan. 2, 1542
(vol. XXXV. f. 449), record as follows: " Ordonnances sus le'glise : lesquelles
hont este' passe par petit grand et general conseyl toutejfoys hont estes cornge's, et
avant quil soyent mys a Umprymerie Resoluz gue en ung conseyl extraordinaire
lesdictes ordonnances soyent vehues [vues] affin que telle quest passe par le general
ne soyt change." AnnaL, XXI. 289 sq.

§ 96. THE FIRST YEARS AFTER THE RETURN. 441

all along the Rhine, crept into Switzerland, diminishing the
population of Basel and' Zurich, and reached Geneva in the
autumn, 1542. To the pestilence was added the scourge of
famine, as is often the case. The evil was aggravated by the
great influx of strangers who were attracted by Calvin's
fame and sought refuge from persecution under his shelter.
The pest-house outside of the city was crowded. Calvin
and Pierre Blanchet offered their services to the sick, while
the rest of the ministers shrank back.1 The Council refused
to let Calvin go, because the Church could not spare him.2
Blanchet risked his life, and fell a victim to his philanthrophy
in eight or nine months. Calvin, in a letter dated October,
1542, gives the following account to Viret, who, in July, had
left for Lausanne : 3 —

" The pestilence also begins to rage here with greater violence, and few
who are at all affected by it escape its ravages. One of our colleagues was to
be set apart for attendance upon the sick. Because Peter [Blanchet] offered
himself all readily acquiesced. If anything happens to him, I fear that I
must take the risk upon myself, for, as you observe, because we are debtors
to one another, we must not be wanting to those who, more than any others,
stand in need of our ministry. And yet it is not my opinion, that while we
wish to provide for one portion we are at liberty to neglect the body of the
Church itself. But so long as we are in this ministry, I do not see that any
pretext will avail us, if, through fear of infection, we are found wanting in
the discharge of our duty when there is most need of our assistance."

Farel, on a like occasion, visited the sick daily, rich and
poor, friend and foe, without distinction.4 We must judge
Calvin by his spirit and motive. He had undoubtedly
the spirit of a martyr, but felt it his duty to obey the magis
trates, and to spare his life till the hour of necessity. We
may refer to the example of Cyprian, who fled during the

1 They said that they would rather go " au (liable" than to the pest-house.

2 That Calvin offered himself is asserted not only by Beza (XXXI. 134),
but also by Koset and Savion. See Bonnet, I. 334, note. Castellio, who was
not a minister, though he wished to become one, also offered his services, but
changed his mind when the lot fell on him.

3 Bonnet-Constable, I. 334.

4 Kirchhofer, Leben Farels, II. 33.

442 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Decian persecution, but died heroically as a martyr in the
Valerian persecution.

In 1545 Geneva was again visited by a pestilence, which
some Swiss soldiers brought from France. The horrors were
aggravated by a diabolical conspiracy of wicked persons,
including some women, connected with the pest-house, for
spreading the plague by artificial means, to gain spoils from
the dead. The conspirators used the infected linen of those
who had died of the disease, and smeared the locks of the
houses with poison. A woman confessed, under torture, that
she had killed eighteen men by her infernal arts. The rav
ages were fearful ; Geneva was decimated ; two thousand
died out of a population of less than twenty thousand. Seven
men and twenty-one women were burned alive for this offence.
The physician of the lazaretto and two assistants were quar
tered.

Calvin formed a modest estimate of his labors during the
first years, as may be seen from his letters. He wrote to
Myconius, the first minister of Basel, March 14, 1542 : l —

"The present state of our affairs I can give you in a few words. For the
first month after resuming the ministry, I had so much to attend to, and so
many annoyances, that I was almost worn out; such a work of labor and diffi
culty has it been to upbuild once more a fallen edifice (collapsum edijicium
instaurare}. Although certainly Viret had already begun successfully to
restore, yet, nevertheless, because he had deferred the complete form of order
and discipline until my arrival, it had, as it were, to be commenced anew.
When, having overcome this labor, I believed that there would be breathing-
time allowed me, lo ! new cares presented themselves, and those of a kind
not much lighter than the former. This, however, somewhat consoles and
refreshes me, that we do not labor altogether in vain, without some fruit
appearing; which, although it is not so plentiful as we could wish, yet neither
is it so scanty but that there does appear some change for the better. There
is a brighter prospect for the future if Viret can be left here with me ; on
which account I am all the more desirous to express to you my most thank
ful acknowledgment, because you share with me in my anxiety that the Ber
nese may not call him away; and I earnestly pray, for the sake of Christ,
that you would do your utmost to bring that about ; for whenever the thought
of his going away presents itself, I faint and lose courage entirely. . . . Our

1 Herminjard, VII. 437 sq. ; Opera, XI. 376 sq. ; Bonnet-Constable, I.
289 sq.

§ 97. SURVEY OF CALVIN'S ACTIVITY. 443

other colleagues are rather a hindrance than a help to us ; they are rude and
self-conceited, have no zeal and less learning. But what is worst of all,
I cannot trust them, even although I very much wish that I could ; for by
many evidences they show their estrangement from us, and give scarcely any
indication of a sincere and trustworthy disposition. I bear with them, how
ever, or rather I humor them, with the utmost lenity; a course from which
I shall not be induced to depart, even by their bad conduct. But if, in the
long run, the sore need a severer remedy, I shall do my utmost, and shall see
to it by every method I can think of, to avoid disturbing the peace of the
Church with our quarrels; for I dread the factions which must always neces
sarily arise from the dissensions of ministers. On my first arrival I might
have driven them away had I wished to do so, and that is also even now in
my power. I shall never, however, repent the degree of moderation which
I have observed, since no one can justly complain that I have been too
severe. These things I mention to you in a cursory way, that you may the
more clearly perceive how wretched I shall be if Viret is taken away from me."

A month later (April 17, 1542), he wrote to Myconius:1 —

"In what concerns the private condition of this Church, I somehow, along
with Viret, sustain the burden of it. If he is taken away from me, my situa
tion will be more deplorable than I can describe to you, and even should he
remain, there is some hazard that very much may not be obtained in the
midst of so much secret animosity [between Geneva and Bern]. But that
I may not torment myself beforehand, the Lord will see to it, and provide
some one on whom I am compelled to cast this care."

In February, 1543, he wrote to Melanchthon : —

"As to our own affairs, there is much that I might write, but the sole
cause which imposes silence upon me is, that I could find no end. I labor
here and do my utmost, but succeed indifferently. Nevertheless, all are
astonished that my progress is so great in the midst of so many impediments,
the greater part of which arise from the ministers themselves. This, how
ever, is a great alleviation of my troubles, that not only this Church, but also
the whole neighborhood, derive some benefit from my presence. Besides that,
somewhat overflows from hence upon France, and even spreads as far as Italy. " 2

§ 97. Survey of Calvirfs Activity.

Calvin combined the offices of theological professor,
preacher, pastor, church-ruler, superintendent of schools,
with the extra labors of equal, yea, greater, importance, as

1 Herminjard, VII. 453 ; Opera, XI. 384 ; Bonnet-Constable, I. 297.

2 Bonnet-Constable, I. 351; Opera, XI. 516. The last sentence, "as far as
Italy," is confirmed by a most grateful letter of evangelical believers in
Venice, Vicenza, and Treviso, " to the saints of the Church of God in Ge
neva," dated Venice, 8 Id. December, 1542. See Opera, XI. 472-474.

444 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

author, correspondent, and leader of the expanding move
ment of the Reformation in Western Europe. He was in
volved in serious disciplinary and theological controversies
with the Libertines, Romanists, Pelagians, Antitrinitarians,
and Lutherans. He had no help except from one or more
young men, whom he kept in his house and employed as
clerks. When unwell he dictated from his bed. He had
an amazing power for work notwithstanding his feeble
health. When interrupted in dictation, he could at once
resume work at the point where he left of!.1 He indulged
in no recreation except a quarter or half an hour's walk in
his room or garden after meals, and an occasional game of
quoits or la clef with intimate friends. He allowed himself
very little sleep, and for at least ten years he took but one
meal a day, alleging his bad digestion.2 No wonder that he
undermined his health, and suffered of headache, ague, dys
pepsia, and other bodily infirmities which terminated in a
premature death.

Luther and Zwingli were as indefatigable workers as
Calvin, but they had an abundance of flesh and blood, and
enjoyed better health. Luther liked to play with his
children, and to entertain his friends with his humorous
table-talk. Zwingli also found recreation in poetry and
music, and played on several instruments.

A few years before his death, Calvin was compelled to speak
of his work in self-defence against the calumnies of an un
grateful student and amanuensis, FranQois Baudouin, a
native of Arras, who ran away with some of Calvin's papers,

1 Beza (XXI. 169) : " Ut . . . inter dictandum scepe aliquot horas interturba-
tus statim ad dictata nullo commonefaciente rediret."

2 Beza (XXI. 160) : " Per decem minimum annos prandio abstinuit, ut nullum
omnino cibum extra statam ccenw horam sumeret, ut eum mirum sit phthisim effugere
tarn dtu potuisse." Farther on (fol. 169) Beza says of Calvin : " Victu sic
temperato, ut a sordibus et ab omni luxu longissime abesset : cibi parcissimi, ut per
multos annos semel quotidie cibum sumpserit, ventriculi imbecillitatem causatus."
Sometimes he abstained for thirty-six hours from all food. At the advice of
his physician, he ate an egg and drank a glass of wine at noon.

§ 97. SURVEY or CALVIN'S ACTIVITY. 445

turned a Romanist, and publicly abused Ms benefactor. " I
will not," lie says, " enumerate the pleasures, conveniences,
and riches I have renounced for Christ. I will only say that,
had I the disposition of Baudouin, it would not have been
very difficult for me to procure those things which he has
always sought in vain, and which he now but too greedily
gloats upon. But let that pass. Content with my humble
fortune, my attention to frugality has prevented me from
being a burden to anybody. I remain tranquil in my station,
and have even given up a part of the moderate salary assigned
to me, instead of asking for any increase. I devote all my
care, labor, and study not only to the service of this Church,
to which I am peculiarly bound, but to the assistance of all
the Churches by every means in my power. I so discharge
my office of a teacher, that no ambition may appear in my
extreme faithfulness and diligence. I devour numerous
griefs, and endure the rudeness of many ; but my liberty is
uncontrolled by the power of any man. I do not indulge
the great by flattery ; I fear not to give offence. No pros
perity has hitherto inflated me ; whilst I have intrepidly
borne the many severe storms by which I have been tossed,
till by the singular mercy of God I emerged from them.
I live affably with my equals, and endeavor faithfully to
preserve my friendships." l

Beza, his daily companion, thus describes " the ordinary
labors " of Calvin, as lie calls them : " During the week he
preached every alternate, and lectured every third day ; on
Thursday he presided in the meetings of Presbytery (Con
sistory) ; and on Friday he expounded the Scripture in the
assembly which we call ' the Congregation/ He illustrated

1 Responsio ad Baldnini Convicia (Geneva, 1562), in Opera, vol. IX. 561-
580. Baudouin was an able lawyer, but a turncoat in religion. He died in
1573. On this personal controversy see Responsio, etc., Opera, VIII. 321 A,
and Henry, vol. III. 549 sqq. Luther had a similar experience with John
Acrricola (Eisleben), his pupil and trusted friend, who publicly attacked him,
and stirred up the Antinomian controversy.

446 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

several sacred books with most learned commentaries, be
sides answering the enemies of religion, and maintaining an
extensive correspondence on matters of great importance.
Any one who reads these attentively, will be astonished how
one little man (unicus liomunculus) could be fit for labors
so numerous and great. He availed himself much of the
aid of Farel and Viret,1 while, at the same time, he conferred
greater benefits on them. Their friendship and intimacy
was not less hateful to the wicked than delightful to all the
pious ; and, in truth, it was a most pleasing spectacle to see
and hear those three distinguished men carrying on the work
of God in the Church so harmoniously, with such a variety
of gifts. Farel excelled in a certain sublimity of mind, so
that nobody could either hear his thunders without trem
bling, or listen to his most fervent prayers without being
almost carried up to heaven. Viret possessed such suavity
of eloquence, that his hearers were compelled to hang upon
his lips. Calvin filled the mind of the hearers with as many
weighty sentiments as lie uttered words. I have often
thought that a preacher compounded of the three would be
absolutely perfect. In addition to these employments, Cal
vin had many others, arising out of circumstances domestic
and foreign. The Lord so blessed his ministry that persons
flocked to him from all parts of the Christian world ; some
to take his advice in matters of religion, and others to hear
him. Hence, we have seen an Italian, an English, and,
finally, a Spanish Church at Geneva, one city seeming
scarcely sufficient to entertain so many guests. But though
at home he was courted by the good and feared by the bad,
and matters had been admirably arranged, yet there were
not wanting individuals who gave him great annoyance.
We will unfold these contests separately, that posterity may

1 Who came to Geneva occasionally, the former from Neuchatel, the latter
from Lausanne.

§ 97. SURVEY OF CALVIN'S ACTIVITY. 447

be presented with a singular example of fortitude, which
each may imitate according to his ability." l

We shall now consider this astounding activity of the
Reformer in detail : his Church polity, his theological system,
his controversies, and his relation to, and influence on,
foreign churches.

1 Vita Calv. in Opera, XXI. 132.

CHAPTER XIII.

CONSTITUTION AND DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH OF

GENEVA.

§ 98. Literature.

I. CALVIN'S Institutio Christ. Religionis, the fourth book, which treats of the

Church and the Sacraments. — Les \ ordinances \ eccle'siastiques de \ I'e'glise
de Geneve. \ Item \ I'ordre des escoles \ de la dite cite. \ Gen., 1541. 92 pp.
4°; another ed., 1562, 110 pp. Reprinted in Opera, X. fol. 15-30. (Projet
d 'ordinances ecclesiastiques, 1541). The same vol. contains also L'ordre
du College de Geneve; Leges academical (1559), fol. 65-90; and Les
ordinances eccle'siastiques de 1561, fol. 91-124. Comp. the Prolegomena,
IX. sq., and also the earliest document on the organization and worship
of the Church of Geneva, 1537, fol. 5-14.

II. Dr. GEORG WEBER : Geschichtliche Darstellung des Calvinismns im Verhdlt-
niss zum Staat in Genf und Frankreich bis zur Aufhebung des Edikts von
Nantes, Heidelberg, 1836 (pp. 372). The first two chapters only (pp.
1-32) treat of Calvin and Geneva ; the greater part of the book is a his
tory of the French Reformation till 1685. — C. B. HUNDESHAGEN : Ueber
den Einfluss des Calvinismus aufdie Ideen von Staat, mid staats-biirgerlicher
Freiheit, Bern, 1842. — *AMEDEE ROGET: L'e'glise et I'e'tat a Geneve du
vivant de Calvin. Etude d'histoire politico-eccle'siastique, Geneve, 1867 (pp.
92). Comp. also his Histoire du peuple de Geneve depuis la reforme
jnsfju'a I 'escalade (1536-1602), 1870-1883, 7 vols.

III. HKNRY, Part II. chs. III.- VI. Comp. his small biography, pp. 165-196.
— DYER, ch. III. — STAHELIN, bk. IV. (vol. I. 319 sqq.). — KAMP-
SCHCLTE, I. 385-480. This is the end of his work; vols. II. and III.
were prevented by his premature death (Dec. 3, 1872), and intrusted to
Professor Cornelius of Munich (a friend and colleague of the late Dr.
Dollinger), but he has so far only published a few papers on special
points, in the Transactions of the Munich Academy. See p. 230. —
MERLE D'AUBIGNE, bk. XI. chs. XXII.-XXIV. (vol. VII. 73 sqq.).
These are his last chapters on Calvin, coming down to February, 1542;
the continuation was prevented by his death in 1872.

§ 99. Calvin s Idea of the Holy Catholic Church.

DURING his sojourn at Strassburg, Calvin matured his
views on the Church and the Sacraments, and embodied them

448

§ 99. CALVIN'S IDEA OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 449

in the fourth book of the second edition of his Institutes,
which appeared in the same year as his Commentary on the
Epistle to the Romans (1539). His ideal was high and com
prehensive, far beyond what he was able to realize in the
little district of Geneva. " In no respect, perhaps," says a
distinguished Scotch Presbyterian scholar,1 " are the Insti
tutes more remarkable than in a certain comprehensiveness
and catholicity of tone, which to many will appear strangely
associated with his name. But Calvin was far too enlight
ened not to recognize the grandeur of the Catholic idea
which had descended through so many ages ; this idea had,
in truth, for such a mind as his, special attractions, and his
own system mainly sought to give to the same idea a new
and higher form. The narrowness and intolerance of his
ecclesiastical rule did not so much spring out of the general
principles laid down in the Institutes, as from his special
interpretation and application of these principles."

When Paul was a prisoner in Rome, chained to a heathen
soldier, and when Christianity was confined to a small band
of humble believers scattered through a hostile world, he
described to the Ephesians his sublime conception of the
Church as the mystical " body of Christ, the fulness of Him
who filleth all in all." Yet in the same and other epistles
he finds it necessary to warn the members of this, holy broth
erhood even against such vulgar vices as theft, intemper
ance, and fornication. The contradiction is only apparent,
and disappears in the distinction between the ideal and the
real, the essential and the phenomenal, the Church as it is
in the mind of Christ and the Church as it is in the masses
of nominal Christians.

The same apparent contradiction we find in Calvin, in
Luther, and other Reformers. They cherished the deepest
respect for the holy Catholic Church of Christ, and yet felt

1 Principal Tulloch of the University of St. Andrews, in Luther and other
Leaders of the Reformation, p. 203 (3d ed. 1883).

450 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

it their duty to protest with all their might against the
abuses and corruptions of the actual Church of their age,
and especially against the papal hierarchy which ruled it
with despotic power. We may go further back to the pro
test of the Hebrew Prophets against the corrupt priesthood.
Christ himself, who recognized the divine economy of the
history of Israel, and came to fulfil the Law and the Prophets,
attacked with withering severity the self-righteousness and
hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees who sat in Moses'
seat, and was condemned by the high priest and the Jewish
hierarchy to the death of the cross. These scriptural ante
cedents help very much to understand and to justify the
course of the Reformers.

Nothing can be more truly Catholic than Calvin's descrip
tion of the historic Church. It reminds one of the finest
passages in St. Cyprian and St. Augustin. After explaining
the meaning of the article of the Apostles' Creed on the holy
Catholic Church, as embracing not only the visible Church,
but all God's elect, living and departed, he thus speaks of
the visible or historic Catholic Church:1 —

" As our present design is to treat of the visible Church, we may learn
even from the title of mother, how useful and even necessary it is for us to
know her; since there is no other way of entrance into life, unless we are
conceived by her, born of her, nourished at her breast, and continually pre
served under her care and government till we are divested of this mortal
flesh and become 'like the angels ' (Matt. 22 : 30). For our infirmity will not
admit of our dismission from her school ; we must continue under her instruc
tion and discipline to the end of our lives. It is also to be remarked that
out of her bosom there can be no hope of remission of sins, or any salvation,
according to the testimony of Isaiah (37 : 32) and Joel (2 : 32) ; which is con
firmed by Ezekiel (13: 9), when he denounces that those whom God excludes
from the heavenly life shall not be enrolled among his people. So, on the
contrary, those who devote themselves to the service of God are said to in
scribe their names among the citizens of Jerusalem. For which reason the
Psalmist says, « Remember me, O Lord, with the favor that thou bearest unto
thy people: O visit me with thy salvation, that I may see the prosperity of
thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may
glory with thine inheritance' (Ps. 106:4, 5). In these words the paternal

1 Inst. IV. ch. I. § 4; comp. §§ 2 and 3.

§ 99. CALVIN'S IDEA OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 451

favor of God, and the peculiar testimony of the spiritual life, are restricted
to his flock, to teach us that it is always fatally dangerous to be separated
from the Church. " 1

So strong are the claims of the visible Church upon us
that even abounding corruptions cannot justify a secession.
Reasoning against the Anabaptists and other radicals who
endeavored to build up a new Church of converts directly
from the Bible, without any regard to the intervening histor
ical Church, he says : 2 —

" Dreadful are those descriptions in which Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Habak-
kuk, and others, deplore the disorders of the Church at Jerusalem. There
was such general and extreme corruption in the people, in the magistrates,
and in the priests that Isaiah does not hesitate to compare Jerusalem to
Sodom and Gomorrah. Religion was partly despised, partly corrupted.
Their manners were generally disgraced by thefts, robberies, treacheries,
murders, and similar crimes.

"Nevertheless, the Prophets on this account neither raised themselves
new churches, nor built new altars for the oblation of separate sacrifices ; but
whatever were the characters of the people, yet because they considered that
God had deposited his word among that nation, and instituted the ceremonies
in which he was there worshipped, they lifted up pure hands to him even in
the congregation of the impious. If they had thought that they contracted
any contagion from these services, surely they would have suffered a hundred
deaths rather than have permitted themselves to be dragged to them.
There was nothing, therefore, to prevent their departure from them, but the
desire of preserving the unity of the Church.

" But if the holy Prophets were restrained by a sense of duty from forsak
ing the Church on account of the numerous and enormous crimes which were
practiced, not by a few individuals, but almost by the whole nation, it is
extreme arrogance in us, if we presume immediately to withdraw from the
communion of a Church, where the conduct of all the members is not compat
ible either with our judgment or even with the Christian profession.

"Now what kind of an age was that of Christ and his Apostles ? Yet the
desperate impiety of the Pharisees, and the dissolute lives everywhere led by
the people, could not prevent them from using the same sacrifices, and
assembling in the same temple with others, for the public exercises of religion.
How did this happen, but from a knowledge that the society of the wicked
could not contaminate those who, with pure consciences, united with them in
the same solemnities.

" If any one pay no deference to the Prophets and the Apostles, let him at
least acquiesce in the authority of Christ. Cyprian has excellently remarked :

1 " Ut semper exitlalis sit ab ecclesia discessio."

2 Ibid. IV. ch. 1, §§ 18, 19.

452 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

' Although tares, or impure vessels, are found in the Church, yet this is not
a reason why we should withdraw from it. It only behooves us to labor that
we may be the wheat, and to use our utmost endeavors and exertions that
we may be vessels of gold or of silver. But to break in pieces the vessels of
earth belongs to the Lord alone, to whom a rod of iron is also given. Nor
let any one arrogate to himself what is the exclusive province of the Son of
God, by pretending to fan the floor, clear away the chaff, and separate all the
tares by the judgment of man. This is proud obstinacy, and sacrilegious
presumption, originating in a corrupt frenzy/

" Let these two points, then, be considered as decided : first, that he who
voluntarily deserts the external communion of the Church where the Word
of God is preached, and the sacraments are administered, is without any
excuse ; secondly, that the faults either of few persons or of many form no
obstacles to a due profession of our faith in the use of the ceremonies insti
tuted by God ; because the pious conscience is not wounded by the unworthi-
ness of any other individual, whether he be a pastor or a private person ; nor
are the mysteries less pure and salutary to a holy and upright man, because
they are received at the same time by the impure."

How, then, with such high churchly views, could Calvin
justify his separation from the Roman Church in which he
was born and trained? He vindicated his position in the
Answer to Sadolet, from which we have given large extracts.1
He did it more fully in his masterly work, " On the Neces
sity of Reforming the Church," which, "in the name of all
who wish Christ to reign," he addressed to the Emperor
Charles V. and the Diet to be assembled at Speier in Feb
ruary, 1544. It is replete with weighty arguments and accu
rate learning, and by far one of the ablest controversial
books of that age.2 The following is a passage bearing upon
this point : 3 —

1 See § 91, pp. 404 sqq.

2 Supplex exhortatio ad Ccesarem Carohim V. de necessitate reformandce
Ecclesice, 1543, in Opera, VI. 453-534. English Version by Henry Beveridge,
Calvin's Tracts, I. 123-237. The Strassburg editors call it a " libellus et ab
argumenti gravitate et a stili elegantia prce azteris commendandus, hodieque lectu
dignissimus." Pro! eg., p. xxviii. Calvin wrote this book at the request of
Bucer, who urged him to do so in a letter of Oct. 25, 1543. It appeared also
in French.

3 Opera, VI. 518 sqq. ; Beveridge, I.e., 211 sqq. Compare the Institutes, IV.
ch. II. §§ 6-12.

§ 99. CALVIN'S IDEA OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 453

" The last and principal charge which they bring against us is, that we
have made a schism in the Church. And here they fiercely maintain against
us, that for no reason is it lawful to break the unity of the Church. How far
they do us injustice the books of our authors bear witness. Now, however,
let them take this brief reply — that we neither dissent from the Church, nor
are aliens from her communion. But, as by this specious name of Church,
they are wont to cast dust in the eyes even of persons otherwise pious and
right-hearted, I beseech your Imperial Majesty, and you, Most Illustrious
Princes, first, to divest yourselves of all prejudice, that you may give an im
partial ear to our defence ; secondly, not to be instantly terrified on hearing
the name of Church, but to remember that the Prophets and Apostles had,
with the pretended Church of their days, a contest similar to that which you
see us have in the present day with the Roman pontiff and his whole train.
When they, by the command of God, inveighed freely against idolatry, super
stition, and the profanation of the temple, and its sacred rites, against the
carelessness and lethargy of priests, and against the general avarice, cruelty,
and licentiousness, they were constantly met with the objection which our
opponents have ever in their mouths — that by dissenting from the common
opinion, they violated the unity of the Church. The ordinary government
of the Church was then vested in the priests. They had not presumptuously
arrogated it to themselves, but God had conferred it upon them by his law.
It would occupy too much time to point out all the instances. Let us, there
fore, be contented with a single instance, in the case of Jeremiah.

" He had to do with the whole college of priests, and the arms with which
they attacked him were these : ' Come, and let us devise devices against
Jeremiah ; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the
wise, nor the word from the prophet' (Jer.»18 : 18). They had among them
a high priest, to reject whose judgment was a capital crime, and they had
the whole order to which God himself had committed the government of the
Jewish Church concurring with them. If the unity of the Church is violated
by him, who, instructed solely by Divine truth, opposes himself to ordinary
authority, the Prophet must be a schismatic ; because, not at all deterred by
such menaces from warring with the impiety of the priests, he steadily
persevered.

"That the eternal truth of God preached by the Prophets and Apostles,
is on our side, we are prepared to show, and it is indeed easy for any man to
perceive. But all that is done is to assail us with this battering-ram,
' Nothing can excuse withdrawal from the Church.' We deny out and out
that we do so. With what, then, do they urge us ? With nothing more than
this, that to them belongs the ordinary government of the Church. But how
much better right had the enemies of Jeremiah to use this argument ? To
them, at all events, there still remained a legal priesthood, instituted by God;
so that their vocation was unquestionable. Those who in the present day
have the name of prelates, cannot prove their vocation by any laws, human
or divine. Be it, however, that in this respect both are on a footing, still,
unless they previously convict the holy Prophet of schism, they will prove
nothing against us by that specious title of Church.

454 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

" I have thus mentioned one Prophet as an example. But all the others
declare that they had the same battle to fight — wicked priests endeavoring
to overwhelm them by a perversion of this term Church. And how did the
Apostles act ? Was it not necessary for them, in professing themselves the
servants of Christ, to declare war upon the synagogue ? And yet the office
and dignity of the priesthood were not then lost. But it will be said that,
though the Prophets and Apostles dissented from wicked priests in doctrine,
they still cultivated communion with them in sacrifices and prayers. I
admit they did, provided they were not forced into idolatry. But which
of the Prophets do we read of as having ever sacrificed in Bethel ? Which
of the faithful, do we suppose, communicated in impure sacrifices, when
the temple was polluted by Antiochus, and profane rites were introduced
into it?

" On the whole, we conclude that the servants of God never felt them
selves obstructed by this empty title of Church, when it was put forward to
support the reign of impiety. It is not enough, therefore, simply to throw
out the name of Church, but judgment must be used to ascertain which is the
true Church, and what is the nature of its unity. And the thing necessary to
be attended to, first of all, is, to beware of separating the Church from Christ,
its Head. When I say Christ, I include the doctrine of his gospel whicli lie
sealed with his blood. Our adversaries, therefore, if they would persuade us
that they are the true Church must, first of all, show that the true doctrine
of God is among them ; and this is the meaning of what we often repeat, viz.
that the uniform characteristics of a well-ordered Church are the preaching
of sound doctrine, and the pure administration of the Sacraments. For,
since Paul declares (Eph. 2 : 20) that the Church is ' built upon the founda
tion of the Apostles and Prophets,' it necessarily follows that any church not
resting on this foundation must immediately fall.

" I come now to our opponents.

" They, no doubt, boast in lofty terms that Christ is on their side. As
soon as they exhibit him in their word we will believe it, but not sooner.
They, in the same way, insist on the term Church. But where, we ask, is
that doctrine which Paul declares to be the only foundation of the Church ?
Doubtless, your Imperial Majesty now sees that there is a vast difference
between assailing us with the reality and assailing us only with the name of
Church. We are as ready to confess as they are that those who abandon
the Church, the common mother of the faithful, the 'pillar and ground of
the truth/ revolt from Christ also; but we mean a Church which, from
incorruptible seed, begets children for immortality, and, when begotten, nour
ishes them with spiritual food (that seed and food being the Word of God),
and which, by its ministry, preserves entire the truth which God deposited
in its bosom. This mark is in no degree doubtful, in no degree fallacious,
and it is the mark which God himself impressed upon his Church, that she
might be discerned thereby. Do we seem unjust in demanding to see this
mark? Wherever it exists not, no face of a Church is seen. If the name,
merely, is put forward, we have only to quote the well-known passage of
Jeremiah, ' Trust ye not in lying words, saying, the temple of the Lord, the

§ 99. CAL YIN'S IDEA OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUECH. 455

temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these' (Jer. 7:4). 'Is this
house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes ? '
(Jer. 7: 11).

" In like manner, the unity of the Church, such as Paul describes it, we
protest we hold sacred, and we denounce anathema against all who in any
way violate it. The principle from which Paul derives unity is, that there
is ' one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,' who hath
called us into one hope (Eph. 4:4-0). Therefore, we are one body and one
spirit, as is here enjoined, if we adhere to God only, i.e. be bound to each
other by the tie of faith. We ought, moreover, to remember what is said in
another passage, ' that faith cometh by the word of God.' Let it, therefore,
be a fixed point, that a holy unity exists amongst us, when, consenting in
pure doctrine, we are united in Christ alone. And, indeed, if concurrence
in any kind of doctrine were sufficient, in what possible way could the Church
of God be distinguished from the impious factions of the wicked ? Where
fore, the Apostle shortly after adds, that the ministry was instituted 'for the
edifying of the body of Christ : till we all come in the unity of the faith, and
of the knowledge of the Son of God : that we be no more children, tossed to
and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, but speaking the
truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, who is the Head, even
Christ' (Eph. 4:12-15). Could he more plainly comprise the whole unity
of the Church in a holy agreement in true doctrine, than when he calls us
back to Christ and to faith, which is included in the knowledge of him, and
to obedience to the truth ? Nor is any lengthened demonstration of this
needed by those who believe the Church to be that sheepfold of which Christ
alone is the Shepherd, and where his voice only is heard, and distinguished
from the voice of strangers. And this is confirmed by Paul, when he prays
for the Romans, 'The God of patience and consolation grant you to be of
the same mind one with another, according to Christ Jesus ; that ye may
with one accord and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ' (Rom. 15:5, 6).

"Let our opponents, then, in the first instance, draw near to Christ, and
then let them convict us of schism, in daring to dissent from them in doc
trine. But, since I have made it plain that Christ is banished from their
society, and the doctrine of his gospel exterminated, their charge against us
simply amounts to this, that we adhere to Christ in preference to them. For
what man, pray, will believe that those who refuse to be led away from Christ
and his truth, in order to deliver themselves into the power of men, are
thereby schismatics, and deserters from the communion of the Church ?

" I certainly admit that respect is to be shown to priests, and that there
is great danger in despising ordinary authority. If, then, they were to say,
that we are not at our own hand to resist ordinary authority, we should have
no difficulty in subscribing to the sentiment. For we are not so rude as not
to see what confusion must arise when the authority of rulers is not respected.
Let pastors, then, have their due honor — an honor, however, not derogatory
in any degree to the supreme authority of Christ, to whom it behooves them
and every man to be subject. For God declares, by Malachi, that the gov-

456 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

eminent of the Israelitish Church was committed to the priests, under the
condition that they should faithfully fulfil the covenant made with them,
viz. that ' their lips should keep knowledge,' and expound the law to the
people (Mai. 2:7). When the priests altogether failed in this condition, he
declares, that, by their perfidy, the covenant was abrogated and made null.
Pastors are mistaken if they imagine that they are invested with the govern
ment of the Church on any other terms than that of being ministers and
witnesses of the truth of God. As long, therefore, as, in opposition to the
law and to the nature of their office, they eagerly wage war with the truth
of God, let them not arrogate to themselves a power which God never
bestowed, either formerly on priests, or now on bishops, on any other terms
than those which have been mentioned."

When the Romanists demanded miracles from the Reform
ers as a test of their innovations, Calvin replied that this
was " unreasonable ; for we forge no new gospel, but retain
the very same, whose truth was confirmed by all the miracles
ever wrought by Christ and the Apostles. The opponents
have this advantage over us, that they confirm their faith by
continual miracles even to this day. But they allege mira
cles which are calculated to unsettle a mind otherwise well
established; for they are frivolous and ridiculous, or vain
and false. Nor, if they were ever so preternatural, ought
they to have any weight in opposition to the truth of God,
since the name of God ought to be sanctified in all places
and at all times, whether by miraculous events or by the
common order of nature." 1

Luther had the same Catholic Church feeling, and gave
strong expression to it in his writings against the radicals,
and in a letter to the Margrave of Brandenburg and Duke
of Prussia (1582), in which he says : t% It is dangerous and
terrible to hear or believe anything against the unanimous
testimony of the entire holy Christian Church as held from
the beginning for now over fifteen hundred years in all the
world." 2 And yet he asserted the right of conscience and

1 Dedication of his Institutes to Francis I.

2 Brief e, De Wett's ed. IV. 354. Still more striking is Luther's judgment
on the Roman Church (in his book against the Anabaptists) : " Ich sage, dass
unter dem Papst die wahre Christenheit ist ; ja der rechte Ausbund der Christen-

§ 100. THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE CHURCH. 457

private judgment at Worms against popes and councils,
because he deemed it "unsafe and dangerous to do anything
against the conscience bound in the Word of God."

§ 100. The Visible and Invisible Church.
Comp. vol. VI. § 85, and the literature there quoted.

A distinction between real and nominal Christianity is as
old as the Church, and has never been denied. " Many are
called, but few are chosen." We can know all that are act
ually called, but God only knows those who are truly chosen.
The kindred parables of the tares and of the net illustrate
the fact that the kingdom of heaven in this world includes
good and bad men, and that a final separation will not take
place before the judgment day.1 Paul distinguishes between
an outward circumcision of the flesh and an inward circum
cision of the heart ; between a carnal Israel and a spiritual
Israel ; and he speaks of Gentiles who are ignorant of the
written law, yet " do by nature the things of the law," and
will judge those who, " with the letter and circumcision, are
transgressors of the law." He thereby intimates that God's
mercy is not bounded by the limits of the visible Church.2

Augustin makes a distinction between the true body of
Christ, which consists of the elect children of God from the
beginning, and the mixed body of Christ, which comprehends
all the baptized.3 In the Middle Ages the Church was iden
tified with the dominion of the papacy, and the Cyprianic

heit, und viel frommer grosser Heiligen." Werke, XXVI. 257, Erlangen ed.
Mo'hler (in his Symbolik, pp. 421, 437) sees in such expressions so many self-
refutations of the Reformers in separating from the Catholic Church, and
forgets that they were cast out with curses and anathemas.

1 Matt. 13:24-30; 47-49.

2 Rom. 2 : 14, 15, 28, 29 ; Col. 2:11.

3 Corpus Christi merum, and corpus Christi mixtum. De Doctr. Christ. III.
32; De Baptismo contra Donatistas, IV. 5. The Donatist Tichonius used
the less suitable designation of a twofold body of Christ (corpus Christi
bipartitum^) .

458 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

maxim, "Extra ecclesiam nulla salus" was narrowed into
" Extra ecclesiam Romanam nulla salus," to the exclusion not
only of heretical sects, but also of the Oriental Church. Wiclif
and Hus, in opposition to the corruptions of the papal Church,
renewed the distinction of Augustin, under a different and
less happy designation of the congregation of the predesti
nated or the elect, and the congregation of those who are
only foreknown.1

The Reformers introduced the terminology " visible " and
" invisible " Church. By this they did not mean two distinct
and separate Churches, but rather two classes of Christians
within the same outward communion. The invisible Church
is in the visible Church, as the soul is in the body, or the
kernel in the shell, but God only knows with certainty who
belong to the invisible Church and will ultimately be saved ;
and in this sense his true children are invisible, that is, not
certainly recognizable and known to men. We may object
to the terminology, but the distinction is real and important.

Luther, who openly adopted the view of Hus at the dis
putation of Leipzig, first applied the term "invisible " to the
true Church, which is meant in the Apostles' Creed.2 The
Augsburg Confession defines the Church to be " the congre
gation of saints (or believers), in which the Gospel is purely
taught, and the sacraments are rightly administered." This
definition is too narrow for the invisible Church, and would
exclude the Baptists and Quakers.3

The Reformed system of doctrine extends the domain of
the invisible or true Church and the possibility of salvation

1 See Wiclif s tract De Ecclesia, published by Loserth, 1886. Hus, in his
tract on the same subject, literally adopted Wiclif's view.

2 He speaks of the erc/esia invisibilis in his second Commentary on the
Galatians, vol. III. 88. Erlangen ed. The Lutheran symbolical books do
not use the term, but teach the thing.

3 The Ninth Article of the Augsburg Confession expressly condemns the
Anabaptists for rejecting infant baptism and maintaining the salvation of
unbaptized infants.

§ 100. THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE CHURCH. 459

beyond the boundaries of the visible Church, and holds that
the Spirit of God is not bound to the ordinary means of
grace, but may work and save "when, where, and how he
pleases."1 Zwingli first introduced both terms. He meant
by the " visible " Church the community of all who bear the
Christian name, by the " invisible " Church the totality of
true believers of all ages.2 And he included in the invisible
Church all the pious heathen, and all infants dying in in
fancy, whether baptized or not. In this liberal view, how
ever, he stood almost alone in his age and anticipated modern
opinions.3

Calvin defines the distinction more clearly and fully than
any of the Reformers, and his view passed into the Second
Helvetic, the Scotch, the Westminster, and other Reformed
Confessions.

" The Church," he says,4 " is used in the sacred Scriptures in two senses.
Sometimes when they mention ' the Church ' they intend that which is really
such in the sight of God (qua revera est coram Deo}, into which none are re
ceived but those who by adoption and grace are the children of God, and by
the sanctification of the Spirit are the true members of Christ. And then it

1 See Westminster Confession of Faith, ch. X. 3.

2 Expos. Christ. Fidei (written in 1531, and published by Bullinger, 1536) :
" Credimus et unam sanctam esse, h.e. universalem ecclesiam. Earn autem esse
out visibilem aut invisibilem. Invisibilis est,juxta Pauli verburn, quce coelo descen-
dit, hoc est, quce Spiritu Sancto illustrante Deum cognoscit et amplectitur. De ista
ecclesia sunt quotquot per universum orbem credunt. Vocatur autem invisibilis non
quasi qui credunt sint invisibiles, sed quod humanis oculis non patet quinam credant ;
sunt enim fideles soli Deo et sibi perspecti. Visibilis autem ecclesia non est Ponti-
fex Romanus cum reliquis cidarim gestantibus, sed quotquot per universum orbem
Christo nomen dederunt ." Opera, IV. 58. Niemeyer, Coll. Confess., p. 53. Zwingli
teaches the same distinction, but without the terms, in his earlier Confession
to Charles V. See Niemeyer, p. 22.

3 See above, pp. 95, 177, 211. Bullinger probably agreed with the liberal
view of his revered teacher and friend, as we may infer from his unqualified
commendation of the last Confession of Zwingli, in which he most emphat
ically teaches the salvation of the pious heathen. Bullinger published it five
years after Zvvingli's death, and said in the preface that in this book Zwingli
surpassed himself (" hoc libe/lo sese superans de vera Jide nescio quid cygneum
vicina morte cantavit"}.

* Inst. bk. IV. ch. I. § 7.

460 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

comprehends not only the saints at any one time resident on earth, but all
the elect who have lived from the beginning of the world.

"But the word 'Church' is frequently used in the Scriptures to designate
the whole multitude dispersed all over the world, who profess to worship one
God and Jesus Christ, who are initiated into his faith by baptism, who testify
their unity in true doctrine and charity by a participation of the sacred sup
per, who consent to the word of the Lord, and preserve the ministry which
Christ has instituted for the purpose of preaching it. In this Church are
included many hypocrites, who have nothing of Christ but the name and
appearance ; many persons, ambitious, avaricious, envious, slanderous, and
dissolute in their lives, who are tolerated for a time, either because they can
not be convicted by a legitimate process, or because discipline is not always
maintained with sufficient vigor.

" As it is necessary therefore to believe that Church which is invisible to
us, and known to God alone, so this Church, which is visible to men, we are
commanded to honor, and to maintain communion with it."

Calvin does not go as far as Zwingli in extending the
number of the elect, but there is nothing in his principles to
forbid such extension. He makes salvation dependent upon
God's sovereign grace, and not upon the visible means of
grace. He expressly includes in the invisible Church " all the
elect who have lived from the beginning of the world," and
even those who had no historical knowledge of Christ. He
says, in agreement with Augustin : " According to the secret
predestination of God, there are many sheep without the pale of
the Church, and many wolves within it. For God knows and
seals those who know not either him or themselves. Of
those who externally bear his seal, his eyes alone can discern
who are unfeignedly holy, and will persevere to the end,
which is the completion of salvation." But in the judgment
of charity, he continues, we must acknowledge as members
of the Church " all those who, by a confession of faith, an
exemplary life, and a participation in the sacraments, profess
the same God and Christ with ourselves." 1

1 Inst. IV. ch. I. § 10.

§ 101. THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 461

§ 101. The Civil Government.

On civil government see Institutes, IV. ch. XX., De politico, administratione
(in Tholuck's ed. II. 475-496).

Calvin discusses the nature and function of Civil Gov
ernment at length, and with the ability and wisdom of a
statesman, in the last chapter of his Institutes.

He holds that the Church is consistent with all forms of
government and social conditions, even with civil servitude
(1 Cor. 7 : 21). But some kind of government is as neces
sary to mankind in this world as bread and water, light and
air; and it is far more excellent, since it protects life and
property, maintains law and order, and enables men to live
peaceably together, and to pursue their several avocations.

As to the different forms of government, Calvin discusses
the merits of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. All
are compatible with Christianity and command our obedience.
All have their advantages and dangers. Monarchy easily
degenerates into despotism, aristocracy into oligarchy or the
faction of a few, democracy into mobocracy and sedition.
He gives the preference to a mixture of aristocracy and
democracy. He infused a more aristocratic spirit into the
democratic Republic of Geneva, and saw a precedent in
the government of Moses with seventy elders elected from
the wisest and best of the people. It is safer, he thinks,
for the government to be in the hands of many than of one,
for they may afford each other assistance, and restrain arro
gance and ambition.

Civil government is of divine origin. " All power is
ordained of God" (Rom. 13 : 1). "By me kings reign, and
princes decree justice" (Prov. 8:15). The magistrates are
called " gods " (Ps. 82:1,6; a passage indorsed by Christ,
John 10 : 35), because they are invested with God's authority
and act as his vicegerents. " Civil magistracy is not only
holy and legitimate, but far the most sacred and honorable

462 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

in human life." Submission to lawful government is the
duty of every citizen. To resist it, is to set at naught the
ordinance of God (Rom. 13 : 3, 4 ; comp. Tit. 3 : 1 ; 1 Pet.
2:13, 14). Paul admonishes Timothy that in the public
congregation " supplication, prayers, intercessions, thanks
givings be made for kings and for all that are in high places ;
that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness
and gravity" (1 Tim. 2:1, 2). We must obey and pray
even for bad rulers, and endure in patience and humility till
God exercises his judgment. The punishment of evildoers
belongs only to God and to the magistrates. Sometimes God
punishes the people by wicked rulers, and punishes these by
other bad rulers. We, as individuals, must suffer rather
than rebel. Only in one case are we required to disobey,
— when the civil ruler commands us to do anything against
the will of God and against our conscience. Then '* we
must obey God rather than men " (Acts 5 : 29). l

Calvin was thus a strong upholder of authority in the
State. He did not advise or encourage the active resistance
of the Huguenots at the beginning of the civil wars in
France, although he gave a tacit consent.

Calvin extended the authority and duty of civil govern
ment to both Tables of the Law. He assigns to it, in Chris
tian society, the office, — "to cherish and support the external
worship of God, to preserve the true doctrine of religion, to
defend the constitution of the Church, and to regulate our
lives in a manner requisite for the social welfare." He
proves this view from the Old Testament, and quotes the
passage in Isaiah 49 : 23, that "kings shall be nursing-fathers

1 He concludes his Institutes with this sentence : " Since this edict has been
proclaimed by that celestial herald, Peter, 'we must obey God rather than
men,' let us console ourselves with this thought, that we truly perform the
obedience which God requires of us, when we suffer anything rather than devi
ate from piety. And that our hearts may not fail us, Paul stimulates us with
another consideration : that Christ has redeemed us at the immense price
which our redemption cost him, that we may not be submissive to the corrupt
desires of men, much less be slaves to their impiety " (1 Cor. 7 : 23).

§ 101. THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 463

and queens nursing-mothers " to the Church. He refers to
the examples of Moses, Joshua and the Judges, David,
Josiah, and Hezekiah.

Here is the critical point where religious persecution by
the State comes in as an inevitable consequence. Offences
against the Church are offences against the State, and vice
versa, and deserve punishment by fines, imprisonment,
exile, and, if necessary, by death. On this ground the exe
cution of Servetus and other heretics was justified by all who
held the same theory ; fortunately, it has no support what
ever in the New Testament, but is directly contrary to the
spirit of the gospel.

Geneva, after the emancipation from the power of the
bishop and the duke of Savoy, was a self-governing Republic
under the protection of Bern and the Swiss Confederacy.
The civil government assumed the episcopal power, and
exercised it first in favor, then against, and at last perma
nently for the Reformation.

The Republic was composed of all citizens of age, who
met annually in general assembly (conseil general), usually
in St. Peter's, under the sounding of bells and trumpets, for
the ratification of laws and the election of officers. The
administrative power was lodged in four Syndics ; the legis
lative power in two councils, the Council of Sixty, and the
Council of Two Hundred. The former existed since 1457 ;
the latter was instituted in 1526, after the alliance with
Freiburg and Bern, in imitation of the Constitution of these
and other Swiss cities. The Sixty were by right members
of the Council of Two Hundred. In 1530 the Two Hun
dred assumed the right to elect the ordinary or little Coun
cil of Twenty-Five, who were a part of the two other councils
and had previously been elected by the Syndics. The real
power lay in the hands of the Syndics and the little Council
of Twenty-five, which formed an oligarchy with legislative,
executive, and judicial functions.

464 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Calvin did not change these fundamental institutions of
the Republic, but he infused into them a Christian and
disciplinary spirit, and improved the legislation. He was
appointed, together with the Syndics Roset, Porral, and
Balard, to draw up a new code of laws, as early as Nov. 1,
1541. l He devoted much time to this work, and paid atten
tion even to the minutest details concerning the administra
tion of justice, the city police, the military, the firemen, the
watchmen on the towers, and the like.2

The city showed her gratitude by presenting him with " a
cask of old wine " for these extra services.3

Many of his regulations continued in legal force down to
the eighteenth century.

Calvin was consulted in all important affairs of the State,
and his advice was usually followed ; but he never occupied
a political or civil office. He was not even a citizen of Geneva
till 1559 (eighteen years after his second arrival), and never
appeared before the councils except when some ecclesiastical
question was debated, or when his advice was asked. It is
a mistake, therefore, to call him the head of the Republic,
except in a purely intellectual and moral sense.

The code of laws was revised with the aid of Calvin by
his friend, Germain Colladoii (1510-1594), an eminent juris
consult and member of a distinguished family of French

1 Reg. du Conseil, in Annal. vol. XXI. 287. Comp. vol. X. Pars I. 125.

2 In the Grand Ducal Library of Gotha are preserved several drafts of
Calvin, in his own handwriting, on the various departments of civil govern
ment, especially the reform of judicial proceedings. They are published in
Opera, X. Pars I. 125-146. " Nicht ohne Bewunderung," says Kampschulte
(I. 416), " sehen wir in ihnen den gelehrten Verfasser der Institution se/bst den
untergeordneten Fragen der stddtischen Verwaltung und Polizei seine Aufmerk-
sam.Jcett zuwenden. Da Jinden wir ausfiihrliche Instructionen fur den Bauaufseher,
Anordnnngen far den Fall einer Feuersbrunst, Anweisungen fur den Aufseher des
stddtischen Geschutzwesens, Verhaltungsregeln sogar fur den NacJitwdchter, fur
die Ketten-, Thor-, und Thurmhuter."

3 " Resoluz quil luy soyt donne ung bossot de vin vieulx de celluy de I'hospital."
Registre du Conseil, Nov. 17, 1542, quoted in Annal. vol. XXI. 305, and in
Opera, X. P. I. 125.

§ 101. THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 465

refugees who settled at Geneva. The revised code was begun
in 1560, and published in 1568. l

Among the laws of Geneva we mention a press law, the
oldest in Switzerland, dated Feb. 15, 1560. .Laws against
the freedom of the press existed before, especially in Spain.
Alexander VI., a Spaniard, issued a bull in 1501, instructing
the German prelates to exercise a close supervision over
printers. Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic established
a censorship which prohibited, under severe penalties, the
printing, importation, and sale of any book that had not
previously passed an examination and obtained a license.
Rome adopted the same policy. Other countries, Protestant
as well as Roman Catholic, followed the example. In Russia,
the severest restrictions of the press are still in force.

The press law of Geneva was comparatively moderate.
It put the press under the supervision of three prudent and
experienced men, to be appointed by the government. These
men have authority to appoint able and trustworthy printers,
to examine every book before it is printed, to prevent popish,
heretical, and infidel publications, to protect the publisher
against piracy ; but Bibles, catechisms, prayers, and psalms
may be printed by all publishers ; new translations of the
Scriptures are privileged in the first edition.2

The censorship of the press continued in Geneva till
the eighteenth century. In 1600 the Council forbade the
printing of the essays of Montaigne ; in 1763 Rousseau's
JZmile was condemned to be burned.

1 On the Colladon family see La France Protestante, IV. 510 sqq. (second
ed. by Bordier). Another distinguished member was Nicolas Colladon, who
published a Life of Calvin in 1565, and succeeded him in the chair of theology
in 1506.

2 The Spanish censorship was applied to the vernacular versions of the
Bible, the works of Erasmus, all Protestant books, the Mystics and Illumi-
nati, the Molinists and Quietists. The natural consequence of this tyranny
was the decadence of intellectual and literary activity. See II. C. Lea, Chap
ters from the Religious History of Spain connected with the Inquisition, Philadel
phia, 1890.

466 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

It should be noted, however, that under the influence of
Calvin Geneva became one of the most important places
of publication. The famous Robert Stephen (Etienne, 1503-
1559), being censured by the Sorbonne of Paris, settled in
Geneva after the death of his father, Henri, as a professed
Protestant, and printed there two editions of the Hebrew
Bible, and an edition of the Greek Testament, with the Vul
gate and Erasmian versions, in 1551, which for the first time
contains the versicular division of the text according to our
present usage. To him we owe the Thesaurus Linguce
Latince (third ed. 1543, in 4 vols.), and to his son, Henri, the
Thesaurus Linguce Grcecce (1572, 4 vols.). Beza published
several editions of his Greek Testament in Geneva (1565-
1598), which were chiefly used by King James' translators.
In the same city appeared the English version of the New
Testament by Whittingham, 1557 ; then of the w^hole Bible,
1560. This is the so-called " Geneva Bible," or " Breeches
Bible " (from the rendering of Gen. 3 : 7), which was for
a long time the most popular English version, and passed
through about two hundred editions from 1560 to 1630. l
Geneva has well maintained its literary reputation to this day.

§ 102. Distinctive Principles of Calvin's Church Polity.

Calvin was a legislator and the founder of a new system
of church polity and discipline. He had a legal training,
which was of much use to him in organizing the Reformed
Church at Geneva. If he had lived in the Middle Ages,
he might have been a Hildebrand or an Innocent III. But
the spirit of the Reformation required a reconstruction of
church government on an evangelical and popular basis.

Calvin laid great stress on the outward organization and
order of the Church, but in subordination to sound doctrine
and the inner spiritual life. He compares the former to the

1 The Bibles in the Caxton Exhibition, London, 1878, p. 95.

§ 102. CALVIN'S CHURCH POLITY. 467

body, while the doctrine which regulates the worship of God,
and points out the way of salvation, is the soul which ani
mates the body and renders it lively and active.1

The Calvinistic system of church polity is based upon the
following principles, which have exerted great influence in
the development of Protestantism : -

1. The autonomy of the Church, or its right of self-
government under the sole headship of Christ.

The Roman Catholic Church likewise claims autonomy,
but in a hierarchical sense, and under the supreme control of
the pope, who, as the visible vicar of Christ, demands passive
obedience from priests and people. Calvin vests the self-gov
ernment in the Christian congregation, and regards all the
ministers of the gospel, in their official character, as ambassa
dors and representatives of Christ. " Christ alone," he says,
" ought to rule and reign in the Church, and to have all pre
eminence in it, and this government ought to be exercised
and administered solely by his word; yet as he dwells not
among us by a visible presence, so as to make an audible
declaration of his will to us, he uses for this purpose the min
istry of men whom he employs as his delegates, not to
transfer his right and honor to them, but only that he may
himself do his work by their lips ; just as an artificer makes
use of an instrument in the performance of his work." 2

In practice, however, the autonomy both of the Roman
Catholic hierarchy and of the Protestant Churches is more or
less curtailed and checked by the civil government wherever
Church and State are united, and where the State supports
the Church. For self-government requires self-support. Cal
vin intended to institute synods, and to make the clergy

1 " De necessitate reformandce Ecclesic? " (Opera, VI. 459 sq.) : "Regimen in
ecclesia, munus pastorale, et reliquus ordo, una cum sacramentis, instar corporis sunt ;
doctrina autem ilia, quce, rite colendi Dei regulam prcescribit, et ubi salutis Jiduciam
debeant hominum conscientice ostendit, anima est, quce corpus ipsum inspirat, vividum
et actnosnrn reddit ; facit denique, ne sit mortuum et inutile cadaver."

- Inst. IV. ch. III. § 1.

468 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

independent of State patronage, but in this he did not
succeed.

The Lutheran Reformers subjected the Church to the secu
lar rulers, and made her an obedient handmaid of the State ;
but they complained bitterly of the selfish and arbitrary
misgovernment of the princes. The congregations in most
, Lutheran countries of Europe have no voice in the election
of their own pastors. The Reformers of German Switzerland
conceded more power to the people in a democratic republic,
and introduced synods, but they likewise put the supreme
power into the hands of the civil government of the several
cantons. In monarchical England the governorship of the
Church was usurped and exercised by Henry VIII. and, in
a milder form, by Queen Elizabeth and her successors, and
acquiesced in by the bishops. The churches under Calvin's
influence always maintained, at least in theory, the independ
ence of the Church in all spiritual affairs, and the right of
individual congregations in the election of their own pastors.
Calvin derives this right from the Greek verb used in the
passage which says that Paul and Barnabas ordained presby
ters by the suffrages or votes of the people.1 " Those two
apostles," he says, " ordained the presbyters ; but the whole
multitude, according to the custom observed among the
Greeks, declared by the elevation of their hands who was the
object of their choice. ... It is not credible that Paul
granted to Timothy and Titus more power (1 Tim. 5:22;
Tit. 1 : 5) than he assumed to himself." After quoting with
approval two passages from Cyprian, he concludes that the
apostolic and best mode of electing pastors is by the consent
of the whole people ; yet other pastors ought to preside over
the election, " to guard the multitude from falling into im
proprieties through inconstancy, intrigue, and confusion." 2

1 Acts 14 : 23, ^eiporov^avrfs, voting by uplifting the hand.

2 Inst. IV. ch. III. § 15; comp. ch. IV. § 11 sqq., where he quotes the old
rule : " Let him who is to preside over all, be chosen by all."

§ 102. CALVIN'S CHURCH POLITY. 469

The Presbyterian Church of Scotland has labored and
suffered more than any Protestant Church for the principle of
the sole headship of Christ; first against popery, then against
prelacy, and last against patronage. In North America this
principle is almost universally acknowledged.

2. The parity of the clergy as distinct from a jure divino
hierarchy whether papal or prelatical.

Calvin maintained, with Jerome, the original identity of
bishops (overseers) and presbyters (elders) ; and in this he
has the support of the best modern exegetes and historians.1

But he did not on this account reject all distinctions
among ministers, which rest on human right and historical
development, nor deny the right of adapting the Church
order to varying conditions and circumstances. He was not
an exclusive or bigoted Presbyterian. He had no objection
to episcopacy in large countries, like Poland and England,
provided the evangelical doctrines be preached.2 In his

1 In his Commentary on Phil. 1:1, he correctly infers from the plural
cTrtV/coTTot, that "nomen episcopi omnibus Verbi ministris esse commune, quum plures
uni ecclesioz Episcopos attribuat. Sunt igitur synonyma Episcopus et Pastor.
Atque hie locus ex Us units est, quos Hieronymus ad illud probandum citat, in
Epistola ad Evagrium, et in expositione Epistolce, ad Titum." In his Commen
tary on Acts 20:28 (comp. with verse 17), he says: " Omnes Ephesinos Prea-
bi/teros indifferentur a Paulo sic [episcopi] vocantur, itnde colligimus secundum
Scriptures usum nihil a Presbyteris dijferre Episcopos, sed vitio et corruptelafactum
esse, ut qui primas tenebant in singulis civitatibus Episcopi vocari coeperint."
Comp. also his commentaries on the relevant passages in the Pastoral Epis
tles, and his Inst. IV. ch. III. § 8, and ch. IV. § 2 (where he quotes Jerome in
full). The Lutheran symbols likewise teach the identity of the episcopate
and presbyterate (see the second Appendix to the Smalcaldian Articles,
p. 341, ed. J. T. Miiller) ; but the Lutheran Churches in Germany have Super
intendents and General Superintendents (called "Bishops" in Prussia, "Prel
ates" in Wiirttemberg). Sweden, Norway, and Denmark retained or rein-
troduced episcopacy (jure humano, not jure divino). The church government
of the Lutheran Churches in America is a compromise between the Presby
terian and synodical system and congregational independency.

2 Melanchthon in this respect went much further and was willing to submit
to a papacy, provided the pope would tolerate the free preaching of the
gospel. He subscribed the Smalcaldian Articles with the restriction : " De
pontifice statuo, si evangelium admitteret, posse ei propter pacem et communem
tranquillitatem Christianorum . . . superioritatem in episcopos . . . jure humano
etiam a nobis permitti."

470 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

correspondence with Archbishop Cranmer and Protector
Somerset, he suggests various improvements, but does not
oppose episcopacy. In a long letter to King Sigismund
Augustus of Poland, he even approves of it in that kingdom.1

But Presbyterianism and Congregationalism are more con
genial to the spirit of Calvinism than prelacy. In the conflict
with Anglican prelacy during the seventeenth century, the
Calvinistic Churches became exclusively Presbyterian in
Scotland, or Independent in England and New England.
During the same period, in opposition to the enforced intro
duction of the Anglican liturgy, the Presbyterians and Con-
gregationalists abandoned liturgical worship ; while Calvin
and the Reformed Churches on the Continent approved of
forms of devotion in connection with free prayer in public
worship.

3. The participation of the Christian laity in Church gov
ernment and discipline. This is a very important feature.

In the Roman Church the laity are passive, and have no
share whatever in legislation. Theirs is simply to obey
the priesthood. Luther first effectively proclaimed the doc-

1 He says in this letter, dated Geneva, 5th Dec., 1554: "The ancient
Church indeed instituted patriarchates, and to different provinces assigned
certain primacies, that by this bond of concord the bishops might remain
more closely united among themselves. Exactly as if, at the present day,
one archbishop should have a certain pre-eminence in the illustrious kingdom
of Poland, not to lord it over the others, nor arrogate to himself a right of
which they were forcibly deprived ; but for the sake of order to occupy the
first place in synods, and cherish a holy unity between his colleagues and
brethren. Then there might be either provincial or urban bishops, whose
functions should be particularly directed to the preservation of order. As
nature dictates, one of these should be chosen from each college, to whom
this care should be specially confided. But it is one thing to hold a moderate
dignity such as is not imcompatible with the abilities of a man, and another
to comprise the whole world under one overgrown government. What the
Romanists keep prating about one single head is then altogether nugatory,
because neither the sacred commandment of God, nor the established usage
of the Church sanctions a second head to be joined with Christ, whom alone
the Heavenly Father has set over all." Bonnet-Constable, III. 104. Comp.
Inst. IV. ch. IV. §§ 1-4; Henry II. G8, 375; III. 427 sqq.; Dyer, 283 sqq.;
456 sq.

§ 103. CHURCH AND STATE. 471

trine of the general priesthood of the laity, but Calvin put it
into an organized form, and made the laity a regular agency
in the local congregation, and in the synods and councils of
the Church. His views are gaining ground in other denomi
nations, and are almost generally adopted in the United
States. Even the Protestant Episcopal Church gives, in the
lower house of her diocesan and general conventions, to the
laity an equal representation with the clergy.

4. Strict discipline to be exercised jointly by ministers
and lay-elders, with the consent of the whole congregation.

In this point Calvin went far beyond the older Reformers,
and achieved greater success, as we shall see hereafter.

5. Union of Church and State on a theocratic basis, if
possible, or separation, if necessary to secure the purity and
self-government of the Church. This requires fuller exposi
tion.

§ 103. Church and State.

Calvin's Church polity is usually styled a theocracy, by
friends in praise, by foes in censure.1 This is true, but in a
qualified sense. He aimed at the sole rule of Christ and his
Word both in Church and State, but without mixture and
interference. The two powers were almost equally balanced
in Geneva. The early Puritan colonies in New England
were an imitation of the Geneva model.

In theory, Calvin made a clearer distinction between the
spiritual and secular powers than was usual in his age, when
both were inextricably interwoven and confused. He com
pares the Church to the soul, the State to the body. The

1 By Weber, Henry, and Stahelin, and many others ; also by Kampschulte,
who remarks (I. 471) : " Dcr Grundgedanlce, von don dcr Gesetzgeber Genfs
ausgeht, ist die Theokratie. Er will in Genf den Gottesstaat herstellen." But
Amede'e Roget (L'e'cflise et I'e'tat a Geneve du vivant de Calvin'} and Merle
d'Aubigne' (vol. VII. 120) dissent from this view and point to the limitations
of the ecclesiastic-al power in Geneva. Merle d'Aubigne says: "Calvin was
not a theoerat, unless the term be taken in the most spiritual sense."

472 THE INFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

one has to do with the spiritual and eternal welfare of man,
the other with the affairs of this present, transitory life.1
Each is independent "and sovereign in its own sphere. He
was opposed to any interference of the civil government with
the internal affairs and discipline of the Church. He was
displeased with the servile condition of the clergy in Ger
many and in Bern, and often complained (even on his death
bed) of the interference of Bern with the Church in Geneva.
But he was equally opposed to a clerical control of civil and
political affairs, and confined the Church to the spiritual
sword. He never held a civil office. The ministers were not
eligible to the magistracy and the councils.

Yet he did not go so far as to separate the two powers ;
on the contrary, he united them as closely as their different
functions would admit. His fundamental idea was, that God
alone is Lord on earth as well as in heaven, and should rule
supreme in Church and State. In this sense he was theo
cratic or christocratic. God uses Church and State as two
distinct but co-operative arms for the upbuilding of Christ's
kingdom. The law for both is the revealed will of God in
the Holy Scriptures. The Church gives moral support to
the State, while the State gives temporal support to the
Church.

Calvin's ideal of Christian society resembles that of Hilde-
brand, but differs from it on the following important points : —

1. Calvin's theory professed to be based upon the Scrip
tures, as the owly rule of faith and practice ; the papal
theocracy drew its support chiefly from tradition and the
canon law.

Calvin's arguments, however, are exclusively taken from
the Old Testament. The Calvinistic as well as the papal
theocracy is Mosaic and legalistic rather than Christian and
evangelical. The Apostolic Church had no connection what-

1 Inst. IV. ch. XX. § 1. " Volui" he wrote to a friend, " sicut cequum est,
spiritualem potestatem a civili judicio distinrjui." Epp. et Ecsp. 263.

§ 103. CHUKCH AND STATE. 473

ever with the State except to obey its legitimate demands.
Christ's rule is expressed in that wisest word ever uttered on
this subject : " Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's ;
and unto God the things that are God's " (Matt. 22: 21).

2. Calvin recognized only the invisible headship of Christ,
and rejected the papal claim to world-dominion as an anti-
christian usurpation.

3. He had a much higher view of the State than the popes.
He considered it equally divine in origin and authority as
the Church, and fully independent in all temporal matters ;
while the papal hierarchy in the Middle Ages often overruled
the State by ecclesiastical authority. Hildebrand compared
the Church to the sun, the State to the moon which borrows
her light from the sun, and claimed and exercised the right
of deposing kings and absolving subjects from their oaths of
allegiance. Boniface VIII. formulated this claim in the
well-known theory of the two swords.

4. Calvin's theocracy was based upon the sovereignty of
the Christian people and the general priesthood of believers ;
the papal theocracy was an exclusive rule of the priesthood.

In practice, the two powers were not as clearly distinct
at Geneva as in theory. They often intermeddled with each
other. The ministers criticised the acts of the magistrates
from the pulpit ; and the magistrates called the ministers to
account for their sermons. Discipline was a common terri
tory for both, and the Consistory was a mixed body of clergj-
men and laymen. The government fixed and paid the
salaries of the pastors, and approved their nomination and
transfer from one parish to another. None could even absent
himself for a length of time without leave by the Council.
The Large Council voted on the Confession of Faith and
Discipline, and gave them the power of law.

The Reformed Church of Geneva, in one word, was an
established Church or State Church, and continues so to
this day, though no more in an exclusive sense, but with

474 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

liberty to Dissenters, whether Catholic or Protestant, who
have of late been increasing by immigration.

The union of Church and State is tacitly assumed or
directly asserted in nearly all the Protestant Confessions
of Faith, which make it the duty of the civil government to
support religion, to protect orthodoxy, and to punish heresy.1

In modern times the character of the State and its attitude
towards the Church has undergone a material change in
Switzerland as well as in other countries. The State is no
longer identified with a particular Church, and has become
either indifferent, or hostile, or tolerant. It is composed of
members of all creeds, and should, in the name of justice,
support all, or none ; in either case allowing to all full liberty
as far as is consistent with the public peace.

Under these circumstances the Church has to choose
between liberty with self-support, and dependence with gov
ernment support. If Calvin lived at this day, he would
undoubtedly prefer the former. Calvinists and Presbyterians
have taken the lead in the struggle for Church independence
against the Erastian and rationalistic encroachments of the
civil power. Free Churches have been organized in French
Switzerland (Geneva, Yaud, Neuchatel), in France, Holland,
and especially in Presbyterian Scotland. The heroic sacri
fices of the Free Church of Scotland in seceding from the
Established Church, and making full provision for all her
wants by voluntary contributions, form one of the brightest
chapters in the history of Protestantism. The Dissenters in
England have always maintained and exercised the voluntary
principle since their legal recognition by the Toleration Act
of 1689. In the British Provinces and in North America,

1 Conf. Helvetica II. ch. XXX. ; Conf. Gallicana, ch. XXXIX. (" God has
put the sword into the hands of magistrates to suppress crimes against the
first as well as the second table of his Commandments ") ; Conf. Belgica,
ch. XXXVI.; Conf. Scotica, Art. XXIV.; Thirty-nine Articles, Art. XXXVII.
(changed in the American recension) ; Westminster Conf. ch. XXIII.
(changed in the American recension).

§ 104. ECCLESIASTICAL ORDINANCES. 475

all denominations are on a basis of equality before the law,
and enjoy, under the protection of the government, full
liberty of self-government with the corresponding duty of
self-support. The condition of modern society demands a
peaceful separation of Church and State, or a Free Church
in a Free State.

§ 104. The Ecclesiastical Ordinances.

Corap. § 83 (352 sqq.) and § 86 (367 sqq.). Calvin discusses the ministerial
office in the third chapter of the fourth book of his Institutes.

Having considered Calvin's general principles on Church
government, we proceed to their introduction and application
in the little Republic of Geneva.

We have seen that in his first interview with the Syndics
and Council after his return, Sept. 13, 1541, he insisted on
the introduction of an ecclesiastical constitution arid disci
pline in accordance with the Word of God and the primitive
Church.1 The Council complied with his wishes, and in
trusted the work to the five pastors (Calvin, Viret, Jacques
Bernard, Henry de la Mare, and Ayme Champereau) and
six councillors (decided Guillermins), to whom was added
Jean Balard as advisory member. The document was pre
pared under his directing influence, submitted to the coun
cils, slightly altered, and solemnly ratified by a general
assembly of citizens (the Conseil general), Jan. 2, 1542,
as the fundamental church law of the Republic of Ge
neva.2 Its essential features have passed into the constitution
and discipline of most of the Reformed and Presbyterian
Churches of Europe and America.

The official text of the " Ordinances " is preserved in the

1 He wrote to Farel, Sept. 16, 1541 (in Opera, XI. 281 ; Herminjard, VII.
249) : " Exposui (/Sfenatwt), non posse consistere ecclesiam, nisi cerium regimen con-
stitueretur, quale ex Verbo Dei nobis prcescriptum estt et in veteri Ecclesia fait
observatum ."

2 See above, p. 440.

476 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Registers of the Venerable Company, and opens with the
following introduction : —

" In the name of God Almighty, we, the Syndics, Small and Great Councils
with our people assembled at the sound of the trumpet and the great clock,
according to our ancient customs, have considered that the matter above all
others worthy of recommendation is to preserve the doctrine of the holy
gospel of our Lord in its purity, to protect the Christian Church, to instruct
faithfully the youth, and to provide a hospital for the proper support of the
poor, — all of which cannot be done without a definite order and rule of life,
from which every estate may learn the duty of its office. For this reason we
have deemed it wise to reduce the spiritual government, such as our Lord has
shown us and instituted by his Word, to a good form to be introduced and
observed among us. Therefore we have ordered and established to follow
and to guard in our city and territory the following ecclesiastical polity, taken
from the gospel of Jesus Christ." :

The document is inspired by a high view of the dignity
and responsibility of the ministry of the gospel, such as we
find in the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians and Ephesians.
"It may be confidently asserted," says a Catholic historian,2
" that in no religious society of Christian Europe the clergy
was assigned a position so dignified, prominent, and influen
tial as in the Church which Calvin built up in Geneva."

In his Institutes Calvin distinguishes three extraordinary
officers of the Church, — Apostles, Prophets, and Evangelists,
— and four ordinary officers — Pastors (Bishops), Teachers,
Ancients (Lay-elders), and Deacons.3

Extraordinary officers were raised up by the Lord at the
beginning of his kingdom, and are raised up on special occa
sions when required " by the necessity of the times." The
Reformers must be regarded as a secondary class of Apostles,
Prophets, and Evangelists. Calvin himself intimates the
parallel when he says : 4 " I do not deny that ever since that
period [of the Apostles] God has sometimes raised up Apos
tles or Evangelists in their stead, as he has done in our own

1 The French text in Opera, X. 10. note a.

2 Kampschulte I. 396.

3 In the " Ordinances " they are called Pasteur s, Docteurs, Anciens, Diacres.

4 List. IV. ch. III. § 4.

§ 104. ECCLESIASTICAL ORDINANCES. 477

time. For there was a necessity for such persons to recover
the Church from the defection of Antichrist. Nevertheless,
I call this an extraordinary office, because it has no place in
well-constituted Churches." 1

The extraordinary offices cannot be regulated by law.
The Ordinances, therefore, give directions only for the ordi
nary offices of the Church.

1. The PASTOBS,2 or ministers of the gospel, as Calvin
likes to call them, have "to preach the Word of God, to
instruct, to admonish, to exhort and reprove in public and
private, to administer the sacraments, and, jointly with the
elders, to exercise discipline." 3

No one can be a pastor who is not called, examined, or
dained, or installed. In the examination, the candidate must
give satisfactory evidence of his knowledge of the Scriptures,
his soundness in doctrine, purity of motives, and integrity of
character. If he proves worthy of the office, he receives
a testimony to that effect from the Council to be presented
to the congregation. If he fails in the examination, he must
wait for another call and submit to another examination.
The best mode of installation is by prayer and laying on
of hands, according to the practice of the Apostles and the
early Church ; but it should be done without superstition.

All the ministers are to hold weekly conferences for
mutual instruction, edification, correction, and encourage-

1 Tliis confirms the view I have taken of Calvin's extraordinary calling
(§ "3> PP- 213 S(1<1-)- In his letter to Sadolet he expresses his firm conviction
that his ministry was from God. (See § 91, pp. 398 sqq.) Luther had the
same conviction concerning his own mission. On his return from the Wart-
burg to Wittenberg, he wrote to the Elector Frederick of Saxony that he had
his gospel not from men, but from heaven, and that he was Christ's evangelist.

2 TToi/afj/fs, pastores, Eph. 4:11. They are the same with Bishops and
Presbyters. " In calling those who preside over Churches by the appellations
of 'Bishops,' 'Presbyters,' and ' Pastors,' without any distinction, I have fol
lowed the usage of the Scripture." Inst. IV. ch. III. § 8. Then he quotes
Phil. 1:1; Tit. 1 : 5, 7 ; Acts 20 : 17, 28. See above, p. 469.

;i " Faire les corrections fraternelles."

478 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

merit in their official duties. No one should absent himself
without a good excuse. This duty devolves also on the
pastors of the country districts. If doctrinal controversies
arise, the ministers settle them by discussion ; and if they
cannot agree, the matter is referred to the magistracy.

Discipline is to be strictly exercised over the ministers,
and a number of sins and vices are specified which cannot
be tolerated among them, such as heresy, schism, rebellion
against ecclesiastical order, blasphemy, impurity, falsehood,
perjury, usury, avarice, dancing, negligence in the study of
the Scriptures.

The Ordinances prescribe for Sunday a service in the
morning, catechism — that is, instruction of little children —
at noon, a second sermon in the afternoon at three o'clock.
Three sermons are to be preached during the week — Mon
day, Tuesday, and Friday. For these services are required, in
the city, five regular ministers and three assistant ministers.

In the Institutes, Calvin describes the office of Pastors to
be the same as that of the Apostles, except in the extent of
their field and authority. They are all ambassadors of Christ
and stewards of the mysteries of God (1 Cor. 4:1). What
Paul says of himself applies to them all : " Woe is to me, if
I preach not the gospel " (1 Cor. 9 : 16).

2. The office of the TEACHERS l is to instruct the believers
in sound doctrine, in order that the purity of the gospel be
not corrupted by ignorance or false opinions.

Calvin derived the distinction between Teachers and Pas
tors from Eph. 4 : 11, and states the difference to consist in
this, " that Teachers have no official concern with discipline,
nor the administration of the sacraments, nor admonitions
and exhortations, but only with the interpretation of the
Scripture; whereas the pastoral office includes all these
duties." 2 He also says that the Teachers sustain the same

1 Si8d(TKa\oL, doctores, Eph. 4 : 11.

2 Inst. IV. ch. III. § 4.

§ 104. ECCLESIASTICAL ORDINANCES. 479

resemblance to the ancient Prophets as the Pastors to the
Apostles. He himself had the prophetic gift of luminous
and convincing teaching in a rare degree. Theological Pro
fessors occupy the highest rank among Teachers.

3. The ANCIENTS or Lay-Elders watch over the good con
duct of the people. They must be God-fearing and wise
men, without and above suspicion. Twelve were to be
selected — two from the Little Council, four from the Coun
cil of the Sixty, and six from the Council of the Two Hun
dred. Each was to be assigned a special district of the city.

This is a very important office in the Presbyterian Churches.
In the Institutes, Calvin quotes in support of it the gifts
of government.1 "From the beginning," he says,2 "every
Church has had its senate or council, composed of pious,
grave, and holy men, who were invested with that jurisdic
tion in the correction of vices. . . . This office of govern
ment is necessary in every age." He makes a distinction
between two classes of Elders, — Ruling Elders and Teach
ing Elders, — on the basis of 1 Tim. 5:17: "Let the elders
that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially
those who labor in the word and in teaching." 3 The ex-
egetical foundation for such a distinction is weak, but the
ruling Lay-Eldership has proved a very useful institution
and great help to the teaching ministry.

4. The DEACONS have the care of the poor and the sick,
and of the hospitals. They must prevent mendicancy which
is contrary to good order.4 Two classes of Deacons are dis-

, 1 Cor. 12 : 28; comp. Rom. 12 : 8.

2 Inst. IV. ch. III. § 8.

8 In his Commentary on the passage. Comp. Inst. IV. ch. III. § 8 : " Guberna-
tores fuisse existimo seniores ex plebe delectos qui censures, morum et exercendce dis-
ciplince una cum episcopis prceessent" The distinction was first made by Calvin
and followed by many Presbyterian and some Lutheran divines, but it is denied
by some of the best modern exegetes. Paul requires all presbyters to be
apt to teach, 1 Tim. 3 : 2 ; 2 Tim. 2 : 2 ; 2 : 24. See Schaff' s History of the Apos
tolic Church, p. 529 sq.

4 Acts 6:1-3; Phil. 1:1; I Tim. 3 : 8 sqq. ; 5 : 9, 10.

480 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

tinguished, those who administer alms, and those who devote
themselves to the poor and sick.1

5. Baptism is to be performed in the Church, and only by
ministers and their assistants. The names of the children
and their parents must be entered in the Church registers.

6. The Lord's Supper is to be administered every month
in one of the Churches, and at Easter, Pentecost, arid
Christmas. The elements must be distributed reverently by
the ministers and deacons. None is to be admitted before
having been instructed in the catechism and made a pro
fession of his faith.

The remainder of the Ordinances contains regulations
about marriage, burial, the visitation of the sick, and prisons.

The Ministers and Ancients are to meet once a week on
Thursday, to discuss together the state of the Church and to
exercise discipline. The object of discipline is to bring the
sinner back to the Lord.2

The Ecclesiastical Ordinances of 1541 were revised and en
larged by Calvin, and adopted by the Little and Large Coun
cils, Nov. 13, 1561. This edition contains also the oaths of
allegiance of the Ministers, Pastors, Doctors, Elders, Dea
cons, and the members of the Consistory, and fuller directions
concerning the administration of the sacraments, marriage,
the visitation of the sick and prisoners, the election of mem
bers of the Consistory, and excommunication.3

A new revision of the Ordinances was made and adopted
by the General Council, June 3, 1576.

§ 105. The Venerable Company and the Consistory.

The Church of Geneva consisted of all baptized and
professing Christians subject to discipline. It had, at the
time of Calvin, a uniform creed; Romanists and sectarians

1 Corap. the Inst. IV. ch. III. 9.

2 " Les corrections ne soient sinon medicines pour reduyre les pecheurs a nostre
Seigneur." 3 Opera, X. Pars I. 91-124.

§ 105. THE VENERABLE COMPANY AND CONSISTORY. 481

being excluded. It was represented and governed by the
Venerable Company and the Consistory.

1. The VENERABLE COMPANY was a purely clerical body,
consisting of all the pastors of the city and district of Geneva.
It had no political power. It was intrusted with the general
supervision of all strictly ecclesiastical affairs, especially the
education, qualification, ordination, and installation of the
ministers of the gospel. But the consent of the civil govern
ment and the congregation was necessary for the final induc
tion to the ministry. Thus the pastors and the people were
to co-operate.

2. The CONSISTORY or PRESBYTERY was a mixed body
of clergymen and laymen, and larger and more influential
than the Venerable Company. It represented the union
of Church and State. It embraced, at the time of Calvin,
five city Pastors and twelve Seniors or Lay-Elders, two
of whom were selected from the Council of Sixty and ten
from the Council of Two Hundred. The laymen, there
fore, had the majority; but the clerical element was com
paratively fixed, while the Elders were elected annually
under * the influence of the clergy. A Syndic was the
constitutional head.1 Calvin never presided in form, but
ruled the proceedings in fact by his superior intelligence
and weighty judgment.2

The Consistory went into operation immediately after the
adoption of the Ordinances, and met every Thursday. The

1 The revised Eccles. Ordinances of 1561 provide (Opera, X. P. I. 121) that
" one of the four Syndics preside over the Consistory with the marshal's staff
(avec son baton) which signifies civil jurisdiction rather than spiritual regime,
afin de mieux garder la distinction qui nous est monstree en I'Escriture saincte entre
le glaive et authority du Magistral, et la superintendence qui doit estre en Eglise."
This regulation of Calvin refutes the assertion of Dyer (p. 142), that
" Calvin usurped the perpetual presidency of the Consistory," and that " he
wished Beza to succeed him in this presidency."

2 " While he was not president of this body, it may be truly said that he
was its soul." Merle d'Aubigne (VII. 120). So also Cramer, Roget, and
others.

482 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

reports begin from the tenth meeting, which was held on
Thursday, Feb. 16, 1542.1

The duty of the Consistory was the maintenance and exer
cise of discipline. Every house was to be visited annually
by a Minister and Elder. To facilitate the working of this
system the city was divided into three parishes — St. Peter's,
the Magdalen, and St. Gervais. Calvin officiated in St.
Peter's.

The Consistorial Court was the controlling power in the
Church of Geneva. It has often been misrepresented as a
sort of tribunal of Inquisition or Star Chamber. But it
could only use the spiritual sword, and had nothing to do
with civil and temporal punishments, which belonged exclu
sively to the Council. The names of Gruet, Bolsec, and
Servetus do not even appear in its records.2 Calvin wrote
to the ministers of Zurich, Nov. 26, 1553: "The Consistory
has no civil jurisdiction, but only the right to reprove accord
ing to the Word of God, and its severest punishment is
excommunication." 3 He wisely provided for the preponder
ance of the lay-element.

At first the Council, following the example of Basel and
Bern, denied to the Consistory the right of excommunica
tion.4 The persons excluded from the Lord's Table usually

1 AnnaL, XXI. 291, sub Fevrier 16, 1542 : " Dixieme seance du Consistoire,
premiere dont il existe un proces verbal, lequel mentionne entre autres la presence de

Calvin et de Viret. Les autres ministres membres du C., sont Bernard, Henri, et
Champeraux. Viret est mentionne' pour la derniere fois le 18 juillet. Calvin
assiste re'gulierement aux stances pendant tout I'exercice 1542-43, except^ cinq
fois."

2 A. Roget, I.e., p. 31 : " Le Consistoire ne pouvait infliger aucune peine, et,
chose remarquable, il n'avait aucune attribution doctrinale. L'ancien syndic Cramer,
dans Vexcellente preface qu'il a place'e en tete des extraits des Registres du Con
sistoire, a fait observer que Gruet, Bolsec et Servet ne sont pas meme nomme's dans
les documents qu'il a analyses; toutes les fois qu'un proces de doctrine est instruit,
c'est le Conseil qui prononce, sur le pre'avis des pasteurs."

3 Opera, XIV. 675: " Nulla in Consistorio civilis jurisdictio, sed tantum repre-
hensiones ex Verbo Domini: ultima vero poena, excommunicatio."

4 On March 19, 1543, the Council of the Sixty resolved "que le Consistoire
n'ait ni jurisdiction ni puissance de defendre la cene, sinon seulement d'admonester

§ 105. THE VENERABLE COMPANY AND CONSISTORY. 483

appealed to the Council, which often interceded in their
behalf or directed them to make an apology to the Consistory.
There was also a difference of opinion as regards the con
sequences of excommunication. The Consistory demanded
that persons cut off from the Church for grievous offenses
and scandalous lives should be banished from the State for
a year, or until they repent ; but the Council did not agree.
Calvin could not always carry out his views, and acted on
the principle to tolerate what he could not abolish.1 It was
only after his final victory over the Libertines in 1555 that
the Council conceded to the Consistory the undisputed power
of excommunication.2

From these facts we may judge with what right Calvin
has so often been called "the Pope of Geneva," mostly by
way of reproach.3 As far as the designation is true, it is an
involuntary tribute to his genius and character. For he had
no material support, and he never used his influence for

et puis faire relation en Conseil, afin que la Seigneurie avise de juger sur les de'lin-
guants suicant leur de'me'rites." Reg., quoted by Roget, p. 37. A month before,
the government of Bern had categorically refused the right of excommunica
tion to the ministers of Lausanne. Ruchat, V. 211.

1 " Tolero quod tollere non licet," as he says in one of his letters.

2 Roget (p. 67) : " Le point de vue soutenu par Calvin dans la question de la
cene avait en/in triomphe' irre'vocablement et, des 1555, nous trouvons le Consistoire
en possession, d'une maniere inconteste'e, du droit d'accorder ou de refuser la partici
pation aux sacrements. Toutefois, le Conseil et les ministres ne sont pas complete-
ment d'accord sur les consequences que doit entrainer I' excommunication."

3 Roget (p. 83 sq.) has collected such exaggerated judgments from several
French writers and contradicts them. Florimond de Raemond says : " Calvin
se rendit le maistre, I'e'vesque, le seigneur, disposant de la religion, de I'estat, de la
ville, du gouvernement, de la police, comme bon luy sembloit." Duruy : " Calvin
e>it di-s 1541 et exerca jusqu'a sa mort un pouvoir absolu. II organisa le gou
vernement de Geneve au profit presque exclusif des ministres du culte reformed
Capefigue : " Calvin re'unissait tous les fils du pouvoir supreme en sa personnel
Paul Janet: " Calvin a e'te le magistrat supreme d'une de'mocratie." Rosseuw St.
Hilaire : " Tout exces appelle une redaction en sens contraire, Calvin subordonne
VEtat a rEglise." Saisset : " L'Etat devenait une the'ocratie et les citoyens de
Geneve n'e'taient plus que les sujets d'un petit nombre de ministres, sujets cux-memes
de Calvin, lequel dominait les trois Conseils du sein du Consistoire et paraissait
a lafois le ROI et le PONTIFE souverain de Id cite'."

484 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

gain or personal ends. The Genevese knew him well and
obeyed him freely.

§ 106. Calviris Theory of Discipline.

Discipline is so important an element in Calvin's Church
polity, that it must be more fully considered. Discipline
was the cause of his expulsion from Geneva, the basis of his
flourishing French congregation at Strassburg, the chief
reason for his recall, the condition of his acceptance, the
struggle and triumph of his life, and the secret of his moral
influence to this day. His rigorous discipline, based on his
rigorous creed, educated the heroic French, Dutch, English,
Scotch, and American Puritans (using this word in a wider
sense for strict Calvinists). It fortified them for their trials
and persecutions, and made them promoters of civil and
religious liberty.

The severity of the system has passed away, even in Ge
neva, Scotland, and New England, but the result remains in
the power of self-government, the capacity for organization,
the order and practical efficiency which characterizes the
Reformed Churches in Europe and America.

Calvin's great aim was to realize the purity and holiness
of the Church as far as human weakness will permit. He
kept constantly in view the ideal of " a Church without spot
or wrinkle or blemish," which Paul describes in the Epistle
to the Ephesians (5 : 27). He wanted every Christian to be
consistent with his profession, to show his faith by good
works, and to strive to be perfect as our Father in heaven is
perfect. He was the only one among the Reformers who
attempted and who measurably carried out this sublime idea
in a whole community.

Luther thought the preaching of the gospel would bring
about all the necessary changes, but he had to complain bit
terly, at the end of his life, of the dissolute manners of the

§ 106. CALVIN'S THEORY OF DISCIPLINE. 485

students and citizens at Wittenberg, and seriously thought
of leaving the city in disgust.1

Calvin knew well enough that the ideal could only be
imperfectly realized in this world, but that it was none the
less our duty to strive after perfection. He often quotes
Augustin against the Donatists who dreamed of an imaginary
purity of the Church, like the Anabaptists who, he observes,
" acknowledge no congregation to belong to Christ, unless it
be in all respects conspicuous for angelic perfection, and
who, under pretext of zeal, destroy all edification." He con
sents to Augustin's remark that " schemes of separation are
pernicious and sacrilegious, because they proceed from pride
and impiety, and disturb the good who are weak, more than
they correct the wicked who are bold." In commenting on
the parable of the net which gathered of every kind (Matt.
13 : 47), he says : " The Church while on earth is mixed
with good and bad and will never be free of all impurity. . . .
Although God, who is a God of order, commands us to exer
cise discipline, he allows for a time to hypocrites a place
among believers until he shall set up his kingdom in its per
fection on the last day. As far as we are concerned, we must
strive to correct vices and to purge the Church of impurity,
although she will not be free from all stain and blemish till
Christ shall separate the goats from the sheep."2

Calvin discusses the subject of discipline in the twelfth
chapter of the fourth book of his Institutes. His views are
sound and scriptural. " No society," he says at the outset,

1 Friederich Julius Stahl, a convert from Judaism, a very able lawyer and
statesman, and one of the chief champions of modern high-church Lutheran-
ism, whose motto was, " Authority, not Majority" (although his wife was
Reformed and he himself attributed his conversion to the Reformed Professor
Krafft in Erlangen), says in his book, Die Lutherische Kirche und die Union
(1860), that Calvin introduced a new principle into Protestantism; namely,
the glorification of God by the full dominion of his Word in the life of Chris
tendom ("die Verherrlichung Gottes durch die wirkliche voile Herrschaft seines
Wortzs im Lcbcn der Chn'stenheft"^,

2 In Tholuck's ed. of Calvin's Harmony of the Gospels, I. P. II. 21.

486 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

a no house can be preserved in proper condition without dis
cipline. The Church ought to be the most orderly society
of all. As the saving doctrine of Christ is the soul of the
Church, so discipline forms the nerves and ligaments which
connect the members and keep each in its proper place. It
serves as a bridle to curb and restrain the refractory who
resist the doctrine of Christ; or as a spur to stimulate the
inactive ; and sometimes as a father's rod to chastise, in mercy
and with the gentleness of the spirit of Christ, those who
have grievously fallen away. It is the only remedy against
a dreadful desolation in the Church."

One of the greatest objections which he had against the
Roman Church of his day was the utter want of discipline
in constant violation of the canons. He asserts, without fear
of contradiction, that " there was scarcely one of the (Roman)
bishops, and not one in a hundred of the parochial clergy,
who, if sentence were to be passed upon his conduct accord
ing to the ancient canons, would not be excommunicated, or,
to say the very least, deposed from his office." *

He distinguished between the discipline of the people and
the discipline of the clergy.2

1. The discipline of members has three degrees : private
admonition ; a second admonition in the presence of wit
nesses or before the Church; and, in case of persistent
disobedience, exclusion from the Lord's Table. This is
in accordance with the rule of Christ (Matt. 18 : 15-17).

1 Inst. IV. ch. V. § 14. In the same chapter (§ 1) he says of the bishops
of his day that most of them were ignorant of the Scriptures, and either
drunkards or fornicators or gamblers or hunters. "The greatest absurdity
is that even boys, scarcely ten years of age, have, by the permission of the
pope, been made bishops." Pope Leo X. himself was made archbishop in his
eighth and cardinal-deacon in his thirteenth year. The Roman Church at
that time tolerated almost anything but heresy and disobedience to the pope,
which in her eyes is worse than the greatest moral crime.

2 He objects to the word clergy as originating in a mistake, since Peter
(1 Pet. 5 : 3) calls the whole Church God's K\ripoi or possessions; but he uses
it for the sake of convenience.

§ 106. CALVIN'S THEORY OF DISCIPLINE. 487

The object of discipline is threefold: to protect the body
of the Church against contamination and profanation; to
guard the individual members against the corrupting influence
of constant association with the wicked; and to bring the
offender to repentance that he may be saved and restored to
the fellowship of the faithful. Excommunication and subse
quent restoration were exercised by Paul in the case of the
Corinthian offender, and by the Church in her purer days.
Even the Emperor Theodosius was excluded from communion
by Bishop Ambrose of Milan on account of the massacre per
petrated in Thessalonica at his order.1

Excommunication should be exercised only against flagi
tious crimes which disgrace the Christian profession ; such as
adultery, fornication, theft, robbery, sedition, perjury, con
tempt of God and his authority. Nor should it be exercised
by the bishop or pastor alone, but by the body of elders, and,
as is pointed out by Paul, " with the knowledge and appro
bation of the congregation ; in such a manner, however, that
the multitude of the people may not direct the proceeding,
but may watch over it as witnesses and guardians, that noth
ing be done by a few persons from any improper motive."
Moreover, "the severity of the Church must be tempered
by a spirit of gentleness. For there is constant need of
the greatest caution, according to the injunction of Paul con
cerning a person who may have been censured, 4 lest by any
means such a one should be swallowed up with his overmuch
sorrow ' (2 Cor. 2:7); for thus a remedy would become a
poison."

When the sinner gives reasonable evidence of repentance

1 Calvin quotes also Chrysostom's famous warning against the profana
tion of the sacrament by the connivance of unfaithful priests : " Blood shall
be required at your hands. Let us not be afraid of sceptres or diadems or
imperial robes ; we have here a greater power. As for myself, I will rather
give up my body to death and suffer my blood to be shed, than I will be a
partaker of this pollution." There is a strong resemblance between Calvin
and Chrysostom, both as commentators and as fearless disciplinarians.

488 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

he is to be restored. Calvin objects to "the excessive au
sterity of the ancients," who refused to readmit the lapsed.
He approves of the course of Cyprian, who says : " Our
patience and kindness and tenderness is ready for all who
come ; I wish all to return into the Church ; I wish all our
fellow-soldiers to be assembled in the camp of Christ, and all
our brethren to be received into the house of God our Father.
I forgive everything ; I conceal much. With ready and sin
cere affection I embrace those who return with penitence."
Calvin adds : " Such as are expelled from the Church, it is
not for us to expunge from the number of the elect, or to
despair of them as already lost. It is proper to consider
them as strangers to the Church, and consequently to Christ,
but this only as long as they remain in a state of exclusion.
And even then let us hope better things of them for the
future, and not cease to pray to God on their behalf. Let
us not condemn to eternal death the offender, nor prescribe
laws to the mercy of God who can change the worst of men
into the best." He makes a distinction between excommu
nication and anathema ; the former censures and punishes
with a view to reformation and restoration ; the latter pre
cludes all pardon, and devotes a person to eternal perdition.
Anathema ought never to be resorted to, or at least very
rarely. Church members ought to exert all means in their
power to promote the reformation of an excommunicated per
son, and admonish him not as an enemy, but as a brother
(2 Cor. 2:8). "Unless this tenderness be observed by the
individual members as well as by the Church collectively,
our discipline will be in danger of speedily degenerating into
cruelty."

2. As regards the discipline of the clergy, Calvin objects
to the exemption of ministers from civil jurisdiction, and
wants them to be subject to the same punishments as laymen.
They are more guilty, as they ought to set a good example.
He quotes with approval the ancient canons, so shamefully

§ 107. THE EXERCISE OF DISCIPLINE IN GENEVA. 489

neglected in the Roman Church of his day, against hunting,
gambling, feasting, usury, commerce, and secular amuse
ments. He recommends annual visitations and synods for
the correction and examination of delinquent clergymen.

But he rejects the prohibition of clerical marriage as an
"act of impious tyranny contrary to the Word of God and
to every principle of justice. With what impunity fornica
tion rages among them [the papal clergy] it is unnecessary
to remark ; emboldened by their polluted celibacy, they have
become hardened to every crime. . . . Paul places marriage
among the virtues of a bishop; these men teach that it is
a vice not to be tolerated in the clergy. . . . Christ has
been pleased to put such honor upon marriage as to make it
an image of his sacred union with the Church. What could
be said more in commendation of the dignity of marriage ?
With what face can that be called impure and polluted,
which exhibits a similitude of the spiritual grace of Christ ?
. . . Marriage is honorable in all; but whoremongers and
adulterers God will judge (Heb. 13 : 4). The Apostles them
selves have proved by their own example that marriage is
not unbecoming the sanctity of any office, however excellent :
for Paul testifies that they not only retained their wives, but
took them about with them (1 Cor. 9 : 5)."

§ 107. The Exercise of Discipline in Geneva.

Calvin succeeded after a fierce struggle in infusing the
Church of Geneva with his views on discipline. The Con
sistory and the Council rivalled with each other, under his
inspiration, in puritanic zeal for the correction of immorality ;
but their zeal sometimes transgressed the dictates of wisdom
and moderation. The union of Church and State rests on
the false assumption that all citizens are members of the
Church and subject to discipline.

Dancing, gambling, drunkenness, the frequentation of tav-

490 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

erns, profanity, luxury, excesses at public entertainments,
extravagance and immodesty in dress, licentious or irreligious
songs were forbidden, and punished by censure or fine or im
prisonment. Even the number of dishes at meals was regu
lated. Drunkards were fined three sols for each offence.
Habitual gamblers were exposed in the pillory with cords
around their neck. Reading of bad books and immoral
novels was also prohibited, and the popular " Amadis de
Gaul" was ordered to be destroyed (1559). A morality play
on "the Acts of the Apostles," after it had been performed
several times, and been attended even by the Council, was
forbidden. Parents were warned against naming their
children after Roman Catholic saints who nourished certain
superstitions ; instead of them the names of Abraham, Moses,
David, Daniel, Zechariah, Jeremiah, Nehemiah became com
mon. (This preference for Old Testament names was carried
even further by the Puritans of England and New England.)
The death penalty against heresy, idolatry, and blasphemy,
and the barbarous custom of the torture were retained.
Adultery, after a second offence, was likewise punished by
death.

These were prohibitive and protective laws intended to
prevent and punish irreligion and immorality.

But the Council introduced also coercive laws, which are
contrary to the nature of religion, and apt to breed hypocrisy
or infidelity. Attendance on public worship was commanded
on penalty of three sols.1 When a refugee from Lyons once
gratefully exclaimed, " How glorious is the liberty we enjoy
here," a woman bitterly replied: "Free indeed we formerly
were to attend mass, but now we are compelled to hear a
sermon." Watchmen were appointed to see that people went

1 " Les ministres ont pri€ que Ion advise defere venyr les gens aut sermon et spe-
cialement les dimanches et le iour des prieres affin de prier Dieu gui nous assiste,
voyeant le trouble quest en leglise de Dieu et la machination dresse' contre les fidelles.
ARRETE QUI IMPOSE UNE AMENDE DE 3 SOLZ A CECX QUI NE VIENDRAIENT
PAS." (Re'g. du Conseil.) In Annal., 394 sub Jan. 17, 1547.

§ 107. THE EXERCISE OF DISCIPLINE IN GENEVA. 491

to church. The members of the Consistory visited every
house once a year to examine into the faith and morals of the
family. Every unseemly word and act on the street was
reported, and the offenders were cited before the Consistory
to be either censured and warned, or to be handed over to
the Council for severer punishment. No respect was paid to
person, rank, or sex. The strictest impartiality was main
tained, and members of the oldest and most distinguished
families, ladies as well as gentlemen, were treated with the
same severity as poor and obscure people.

Let us give a summary of the most striking cases of disci
pline. Several women, among them the wife of Ami Perrin,
the captain-general, were imprisoned for dancing (which was
usually connected with excesses). Bonivard, the hero of
political liberty, and a friend of Calvin, was cited before the
Consistory because he had played at dice with Clement
Marot, the poet, for a quart of wine.1 A man was banished
from the city for three months because, on hearing an ass
bray, he said jestingly: " He prays a beautiful psalm."2 A
young man was punished because he gave his bride a book
on housekeeping with the remark: "This is the best Psalter."
A lady of Ferrara was expelled from the city for expressing
sympathy with the Libertines, and abusing Calvin and the
Consistory. Three men who had laughed during the sermon
were imprisoned for three days. Another had to do public
penance for neglecting to commune on Whitsunday. Three
children were punished because they remained outside of the
church during the sermon to eat cakes. A man who swore
by the " body and blood of Christ " was fined and condemned
to stand for an hour in the pillory on the public square.
A child was whipped for calling his mother a thief and a
she-devil (diabless). A girl was beheaded for striking her
parents, to vindicate the dignity of the fifth commandment.

1 Roget, Peuple de Geneve, II. 29, quoted by Merle d'Aubigne, VII. 124.

2 " 77 chante un beau psaume."

492 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

A banker was executed for repeated adultery, but he died
penitent and praised God for the triumph of justice. A person
named Chapuis was imprisoned for four days because he per
sisted in calling his child Claude (a Roman Catholic saint)
instead of Abraham, as the minister wished, and saying that
he would sooner keep his son unbaptized for fifteen years.1
Bolsec, Gentilis, and Castellio were expelled from the Repub
lic for heretical opinions. Men and women were burnt for
witchcraft. Gruet was beheaded for sedition and atheism.
Servetus was burnt for heresy and blasphemy. The last is
the most flagrant case which, more than all others combined,
has exposed the name of Calvin to abuse and execration ; but
it should be remembered that lie wished to substitute the
milder punishment of the sword for the stake, and in this
point at least he was in advance of the public opinion and
usual practice of his age.2

The official acts of the Council from 1541 to 1559 exhibit
a dark chapter of censures, fines, imprisonments, and execu
tions. During the ravages of the pestilence in 1545 more
than twenty men and women were burnt alive for witchcraft,
and -a wicked conspiracy to spread the horrible disease.3
From 1542 to 1546 fifty-eight judgments of death and
seventy-six decrees of banishments were passed.4 During
the years 1558 and 1559 the cases of various punishments for

1 Registers for April 27, 1546. Henry II. 429.

2 For a fuller statement see chap. XVI.

3 Calvin himself states this fact in a letter to Myconius of Basel, March
27, 1545 (Opera, XII. 55 ; Bonnet, I. 428), where he says : "A conspiracy of men
and women has lately been discovered, who, for the space of three years, had
spread the plague through the city by what mischievous device I know not.
After fifteen women have been burnt, some men have even been punished
more severely, some have committed suicide in prison, and while twenty-
five are still kept prisoners, — the conspirators do not cease, notwithstanding,
to smear the door-locks of the dwelling-houses with their poisonous ointment.
You see in the midst of what perils we are tossed about. The Lord hath
hitherto preserved our dwelling, though it has more than once been attempted.
It is well that we know ourselves to be under His care."

4 According to Galiffe, as quoted by Kampschulte, I. 425.

§ 107. THE EXERCISE OF DISCIPLINE IN GENEVA. 493

all sorts of offences amounted to four hundred and fourteen
— a very large proportion for a population of 20,000.

The enemies of Calvin — Bolsec, Audin, Galiffe (father
and son) — make the most of these facts, and, ignoring all
the good he has done, condemn the great Reformer as a
heartless and cruel tyrant.1

It is impossible to deny that this kind of legislation savors
more of the austerity of old heathen Rome and the Levitical
code than of the gospel of Christ, and that the actual exer
cise of discipline was often petty, pedantic, and unnecessarily
severe. Calvin was, as he himself confessed, not free from
impatience, passion, and anger, which were increased by his
physical infirmities ; but he was influenced by an honest zeal
for the purity of the Church, and not by personal malice.
When he was threatened by Perrin and the Favre family
with a second expulsion, he wrote to Perrin : " Such threats
make no impression upon me. I did not return to Geneva to
obtain leisure and profit, nor will it be to my sorrow if I should
have to leave it again. It was the welfare and safety of
the Church and State that induced me to return."2 He must
be judged by the standard of his own, and not of our, age.
The most cruel of those laws — against witchcraft, heresy,
and blasphemy — were inherited from the Catholic Middle
Ages, and continued in force in all countries of Europe,

1 Take the following rhetorical caricature of Calvin's and Colladon's
politico-religious code of laws from Audin (Life of Calvin, ch. XXXVI. 354,
Am. ed.) : " There is but one word heard or read : Death. Death to every
one guilty of high treason against God ; death to every one guilty of high
treason against the State; death to the son that strikes or curses his father;
death to the adulterer ; death to heretics. . . . During the space of twenty
years, commencing from the date of Calvin's recall, the history of Geneva is
a bloody drama, in which pity, dread, terror, indignation, and tears, by turns,
appear to seize upon the soul. At each step we encounter chains, thongs,
a stake, pincers, melted pitch, fire, and sulphur. And throughout the whole
there is blood. One imagines himself in Dante's Hell, where sighs, groans,
and lamentations continually resound."

2 This letter to Perrin is undated, but is probably from April, 1546. See
Opera, XII. 338 sq. and Bonnet, II. 42 sq.

494 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Protestant as well as Roman Catholic, down to the end of
the seventeenth century. Tolerance is a modern virtue. We
shall return to this subject again in the chapter on Servetus.

§ 108. Calvin's Struggle with the Patriots and Libertines.

Contre la secte phantastique et furieuse des Libertins qui se nomment Spirituelz.
Geneva, 1545 ; 2d ed. 1547. Reprinted in Opera, vol. VII. 145-252. Latin
version by Nic. des Gallars, 1546. FAREL also wrote a French book
against the Libertines, Geneva, 1550.

The works of J. A. GALIFFE and J. B. G. GALIFFE on the Genevese families
and the criminal processes of Perrin, Ameaux, Berthelier, etc., quoted
above, p. 224. Hostile to Calvin. — AUDIN, chs. XXXV., XXXVI., and
XLIII. Likewise hostile.

F. TRECHSEL : Libertiner, in the first ed. of Herzog's Encykl., VIII. 375-380
(omitted in the second ed.), and his Antitrinitarier, 1. 177 sqq. — HEXRY
II. 402 sqq. — HUXDESHAGEN in the "Studien und Kritiken," 1845, pp.
866 sqq. — DYER, 177, 198, 368, 390 sqq. — STAHELIN, I. 382 sqq. ; 457 sqq.
On the side of Calvin.

CHARLES SCHMIDT: Les Libertins spirituels, Bale, 1876 (pp. xiv. and 251).
From a manuscript autograph of one J. F., an adept of the sect, written
between 1547 and 1550. An extract in La France Protest. III. 590 sq.

It required a ten years' conflict till Calvin succeeded in
carrying out his system of discipline. The opposition began
to manifest itself in 1545, during the raging of the pestilence ;
it culminated at the trial of Servetus in 1553, and it finally
broke down in 1555.

Calvin compares himself in this controversy with David
fighting against the Philistines. " If I should describe," he
says in the Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms (1557),1
"the course of my struggles by which the Lord has exercised
me from this period, it would make a long story, but a
brief reference may suffice. It affords me no slight consola
tion that David preceded me in these conflicts. For as the
Philistines and other foreign foes vexed this holy king by
continual wars, and as the wickedness and treachery of the
faithless of his own house grieved him still more, so was I on
all sides assailed, and had scarcely a moment's rest from out-

1 Opera, vol. XXXI. 27.

§ 108. CALVIN'S STRUGGLE. 495

ward or inward struggles. But when Satan had made so
many efforts to destroy our Church, it came at length to this,
that I, unwarlike and timid as I am,1 found myself compelled
to oppose my own body to the murderous assault, and so to
ward it off. Five years long had we to struggle without
ceasing for the upholding of discipline ; for these evil-doers
were endowed with too great a degree of power to be easily
overcome ; and a portion of the people, perverted by their
means, wished only for an unbridled freedom. To such
worthless men, despisers of the holy law, the ruin of the
Church was a matter of utter indifference, could they but
obtain the liberty to do whatever they desired. Many were
induced by necessity and hunger, some by ambition or by a
shameful desire of gain, to attempt a general overthrow, and
to risk their own ruin as well as ours, rather than be subject
to the laws. Scarcely a single thing, I believe, was left un-
attempted by them during this long period which we might
not suppose to have been prepared in the workshop of Satan.
Their wretched designs could only be attended with a shame
ful disappointment. A melancholy drama was thus pre
sented to me ; for much as they deserved all possible punish
ment, I should have been rejoiced to see them passing their
lives in peace and respectability : which might have been the
case, had they not wholly rejected every kind of prudent
admonition."

At one time he almost despaired of success. He wrote to
Farel, Dec. 14, 1547 : " Affairs are in such a state of confu
sion that I despair of being able longer to retain the Church,
at least by my own endeavors. May the Lord hear your
incessant prayers in our behalf." And to Viret he wrote, on
Dec. 17, 1547 : " Wickedness has now reached such a pitch
here that I hardly hope that the Church can be upheld much

1 " Qui imbellis sum et meticulosus" ; in the French ed., " tout foible et crain-
tif que je suis." He more than once refers to his natural timidity ; but he
risked his life on several occasions.

496 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

longer, at least by means of my ministry. Believe me, my
power is broken, unless God stretch forth his hand." l

The adversaries of Calvin were, with a few exceptions,
the same who had driven him away in 1538. They never
cordially consented to his recall. They yielded for a time to
the pressure of public opinion and political necessity; but
when he carried out the scheme of discipline much more
rigorously than they had expected, they showed their old
hostility, and took advantage of every censurable act of the
Consistory or Council. They hated him worse than the
pope.2 They abhorred the very word "discipline." They
resorted to personal indignities and every device of intimida
tion ; they nicknamed him " Cain," and gave his name to the
dogs of the street ; they insulted him on his way to the
lecture-room ; they fired one night fifty shots before his bed
chamber; they threatened him in the pulpit; they approached
the communion table to wrest the sacred elements from his
hands, but he refused to profane the sacrament and over
awed them. On another occasion he walked into the midst
of an excited crowd and offered his breast to their daggers.
As late as October 15, 1554, he wrote to an old friend : " Dogs
bark at me on all sides. Everywhere I am saluted with the
name of 4 heretic,' and all the calumnies that can possibly
be invented are heaped upon me; in a word, the enemies
among my own flock attack me with greater bitterness than
my declared enemies among the papists." 3

And yet in the midst of these troubles he continued to
discharge all his duties, and found time to write some of his
most important works.

1 Bonnet, II. 133 sq. and 135 ; Opera, XII. 632 sqq. The date of the letter
to Viret is Dec. 17, not 14, as given by Bonnet.

2 To them must be traced the saying : " They would rather be with Beza
in hell than with Calvin in heaven." But Beza was in full accord with Calvin
in discipline as well as doctrine. The saying is reported by Papyrius Masso :
41 Genevenses inter jocos dicebant, malle se apud inferos cum Beza quam apud
snperos esse cum Calvino." Audin, p. 487. 3 Opera, XV. 271.

§ 108. CALVIN'S STRUGGLE. 497

It seems incredible that a man of feeble constitution and
physical timidity should have been able to triumph over such
determined and ferocious opposition. The explanation is in
the justice of his cause, and the moral purity and " majesty "
of his character, which so strongly impressed the Genevese.

We must distinguish two parties among Calvin's enemies
- the Patriots, who opposed him on political grounds, and
the Libertines, who hated his religion. It would be unjust
to charge all the Patriots with the irreligious sentiments of
the Libertines. But they made common cause for the over
throw of Calvin and his detested system of discipline. They
had many followers among the discontented and dissolute
rabble which abounds in every large city, and is always
ready for a revolution, having nothing to lose and everything
to gain.

1. The PATRIOTS or CHILDREN OF GENEVA (Enfants de
G-eneve), as they called themselves, belonged to some of the
eldest and most influential families of Geneva, — Favre (or
Fabri), Perrin, Vandel, Berthelier, Ameaux.1 They or their
fathers had taken an active part in the achievement of politi
cal independence, and even in the introduction of the Refor
mation, as a means of protecting that independence. But
they did not care for the positive doctrines of the Reforma
tion. They wanted liberty without law. They resisted every
encroachment on their personal freedom and love of amuse
ments. They hated the evangelical discipline more than the
yoke of Savoy.

They also disliked Calvin as a foreigner, who was not even
naturalized before 1559. In the pride and prejudice of nativ-
ism, they denounced the refugees, who had sacrificed home
and fortune to religion, as a set of adventurers, soldiers of
fortune, bankrupts, and spies of the Reformer. "These

1 The Galiffes fairly represent the animosity of these old families to Cal
vin, but far surpass their ancestors in literary and moral culture and respec
tability, which they owe to the effects of his reformation.

498 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

dogs of Frenchmen," they said, " are the cause that we are
slaves, and must bow before Calvin and confess our sins.

Let the preachers and their gang go to the ." They

deprived the refugees of the right to carry arms, and opposed
their admission to the rights of citizenship, as there was
danger that they might outnumber and outvote the native
citizens. Calvin secured, in 1559, through a majority of the
Council, at one time, the admission of three hundred of these
refugees, mostly Frenchmen.

The Patriots disliked also the protectorate of Bern,
although Bern never favored the strict theology and disci
pline of Calvin.

2. The LIBERTINES 1 or SPIRITUELS, as they called them
selves, were far worse than the Patriots. They formed the
opposite extreme to the severe discipline of Calvin. He
declares that they were the most pernicious of all the sects that
appeared since the time of the ancient Gnostics and Manichae-
ans, and that they answer the prophetic description in the
Second Epistle of Peter and the Epistle of Jude. He traces
their immediate origin to Coppin of Yssel and Quintin of Hen-
negau, in the Netherlands, and to an ex-priest, Pocquet or
Pocques, who spent some time in Geneva, and wanted to get
a certificate from Calvin ; but Calvin saw through the man
and refused it. They revived the antinomian doctrines of the
mediaeval sect of the " Brethren and Sisters of the Free
Spirit," a branch of the Beghards, who had their head
quarters at Cologne and the Lower Rhine, and emancipated
themselves not only from the Church, but also from the laws
of morality.2

The Libertines described by Calvin were antinomian pan
theists. They confounded the boundaries of truth and error,

1 The synagogue of the Libertines in Jerusalem opposed Stephen, the
forerunner of Paul, Acts 6 : 9.

2 Gieseler connects both sects, vol. III. Part I. 385 ; comp. II. Part III. 266.
Strype notices the existence of a similar sect in England at a later period,
Annals, vol. II. Part II. 287 sqq. (quoted by Dyer, p. 177).

§ 108. CALVIN'S STRUGGLE. 490

of right and wrong. Under the pretext of the freedom of the
spirit, they advocated the unbridled license of the flesh.
Their spiritualism ended in carnal materialism. They taught
that there is but one spirit, the Spirit of God, who lives in
all creatures, which are nothing without him. " What I or
you do," said Quintin, " is done by God, and what God does,
we do ; for he is in us." Sin is a mere negation or privation,
yea, an idle illusion which disappears as soon as it is known
and disregarded. Salvation consists in the deliverance from
the phantom of sin. There is no Satan, and no angels, good
or bad. They denied the truth of the gospel history. The
crucifixion and resurrection of Christ have only a symbolical
meaning to show us that sin does not exist for us.

The Libertines taught the community of goods and of
women, and elevated spiritual marriage above legal marriage,
which is merely carnal and not binding. The wife of Ameaux
justified her wild licentiousness by the doctrine of the com
munion of saints, and by the first commandment of God given
to man : " Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth "
(Gen. 1 : 28).

The Libertines rejected the Scriptures as a dead letter, or
they resorted to wild allegorical interpretations to suit their
fancies. They gave to each of the Apostles a ridiculous nick
name.1 Some carried their system to downright atheism
and blasphemous anti-Christianity.

They used a peculiar jargon, like the Gypsies, and distorted
common wrords into a mysterious meaning. They were
experts in the art of simulation and justified pious fraud by
the parables of Christ. They accommodated themselves to
Catholics or Protestants according "to circumstances, and
concealed their real opinions from the uninitiated.

The sect made progress among the higher classes of France,

1 They called St. Matthew, the publican, usurier (a usurer) ; St. Paul, pot-
casse (a broken vessel) ; St. Peter, on account of his denial of Christ, renonceur
de Dteu ; St. John, jouvenceau et follet (a childish youth), etc.

500 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

where they converted about four thousand persons. Quintin
and Pocquet insinuated themselves into the favor of Queen
Marguerite of Navarre, who protected and supported them at
her little court at Nerac, yet without adopting their opinions
and practices.1 She took offence at Calvin's severe attack
upon them. He justified his course in a reply of April 28,
1545, which is a fine specimen of courtesy, frankness, and
manly dignity. Calvin assured the queen, whose protection
he had himself enjoyed while a fugitive from persecution,
that he intended no reflection on her honor, or disrespect to
her royal majesty, and that he wrote simply in obedience
to his duty as a minister. " Even a dog barks if he sees any
one assault his master. How could I be silent if God's truth
is assailed ?2 ... As for your saying that you would not like
to have such a servant as myself, I confess that I am not
qualified to render you any great service, nor have you need
of it. ... Nevertheless, the disposition is not wanting, and
your disdain shall not prevent my being at heart your hum
ble servant. For the rest, those who know me are well
aware that I have never studied to enter into the courts of
princes, for I was never tempted to court worldly honors.3
For I have good reason to be contented with the service of
that good Master, who has accepted me and retained me in
the honorable office which I hold, however contemptible
in the eyes of the world. I should, indeed, be ungrateful

1 Bonnet, in a note on Calvin's letter to the queen (I. 429), says of her:
" In the later years of her life [she died in 1549] her piety gradually degen
erated into a kind of contemplative mysticism, whose chief characteristic was
indifference towards outward forms, uniting the external ordinances of the
Roman Church with the inward cherishing of a purer faith." See above,
p. 323.

2 " Un chien abaye, sil voyt quon assaille son maistre ; ie serois bien lasche, si en
voyant la verite de dien ainsi assalli/e, ie faisois du muet sans sonner mot."

8 " A.U reste, ceulx qui me coqnoissent, savent bien que nay iamais aspire davoir
entree aux courtz des princes, dautant que ie nestois pas tente" de parvenir aux
estatz" (honorum studio titillatus).

§ 109. THE LEADERS OF THE LIBERTINES. 501

beyond measure if I did not prefer this condition to all
the riches and honors of the world." 1

Beza says : " It was owing to Calvin that this horrid sect,
in which all the most monstrous heresies of ancient times
were renewed, was kept within the confines of Holland and
the adjacent provinces."

During the trial of Servetus the political and religious
Libertines combined in an organized effort for the over
throw of Calvin at Geneva, but were finally defeated by a
failure of an attempted rebellion in May, 1555.

§ 109. The Leaders of the Libertines and their punishment :
— G-ruet, Perrin, Ameaux, Vandel, Berthelier.

We shall now give sketches of the chief Patriots and
Libertines, and their quarrels with Calvin and his system
of discipline. The heretical opponents — Bolsec, Castellio,
Servetus — will be considered in a separate chapter on the
Doctrinal Controversies.

1. JACQUES GEUET was the first victim of Calvin's disci
pline who suffered death for sedition and blasphemy. His
case is the most famous next to that of Servetus. Gruet2
was a Libertine of the worst type, both politically and relig
iously, and would have been condemned to death in any other
cpuntry at that time. He was a Patriot descended from an
old and respectable family, and formerly a canon. He lay
under suspicion of having attempted to poison Viret in 1535.
He wrote verses against Calvin and the refugees which (as
Audin says) were "more malignant than poetic." He was
a regular frequenter of taverns, and opposed to any rules

1 The French original in Henry, II. Beilage, 14, p. 112 sqq. ; also in Bonnet
and in Opera, XII. 64-68. The Latin editions date the letter April 20 instead
of 28.

2 A son of Humbert Gruet, notary public of Geneva ; not to be confounded
with Canon Claude Gruet. See Opera, XII. 546, note 9; Bonnet, Letters fr.
I. 212, and Henry, II. 440.

502 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

in Church and State which interfered with personal liberty.
When in church, he looked boldly and defiantly into the
face of the preacher. He first adopted the Bernese fashion
of wearing breeches with plaits at the knees, and openly
defied the discipline of the Consistory which forbade it.
Calvin called him a scurvy fellow, and gives an unfavorable
account of his moral and religious character, which the facts
fully justified.

On the 27th of June, 1547, a few days after the wife of
Perrin had defied the Consistory,1 the following libel, written
in the Savoyard patois, was attached to Calvin's pulpit in
St. Peter's Church : -

"Gross hypocrite (Gros panfar), thou and thy companions will gain little
by your pains. If you do not save yourselves by flight, nobody shall prevent
your overthrow, and you will curse the hour when you left your monkery.
Warning has been already given that the devil and his renegade priests were
come hither to ruin every thing. But after people have suffered long they
avenge themselves. Take care that you are not served like Mons. Verle of
Fribourg.2 We will not have so many masters. Mark well what I say." 3

The Council arrested Jacques Gruet, who had been heard
uttering threats against Calvin a few days previously, and
had written obscene and impious verses and letters. In his
house were found a copy of Calvin's work against the Liber
tines with a marginal note, Toutes folies, and several papers
and letters filled with abuse of Calvin as a haughty, ambi
tious, and obstinate hypocrite who wished to be adored, and
to rob the pope of his honor. There were also found two
Latin pages in Gruet's handwriting, in which the Scriptures

1 On the date see Opera, XII. 546, note 7, and Annal. XXI. 407, sub Lundi
Juin 27 : " Un e'crit violent centre Calvin et ses collegues est trouve dans la chaire
d'un des temples." Calvin's letter to Viret, July 2, 1547: " Postridie reperitur
charta in suggestu qua mortem nobis minantur."

2 Peter Wernly, a canon of St. Peter's, was killed in a fight with the Prot
estants, while endeavoring to save himself by flight, May 4, 1533.

3 " Nota bin mon dire." See the original of the placard in Opera, XII. 546,
note 8. Gaberel and Ruchat give it in modern French. The editors of the
Opera refer panfar to Abel Poupin (" Pan far ventrosum dicit Poupinum"').

§ 109. THE LEADERS OF THE LIBERTINES. 503

were ridiculed, Christ blasphemed, and the immortality of
the soul called a dream and a fable.

Gruet was tortured every day for a month, after the in
human fashion of that age.1 He confessed that he had affixed
the libel, and that the papers found in his house belonged to
him : but he refused to name any accomplices. He was con
demned for religious, moral, and political offences ; being
found guilty of expressing contempt for religion ; of declar
ing that laws, both human and divine, were but the work of
man's caprice ; and that fornication was not criminal when
both parties were consenting ; and of threatening the clergy
and the Council itself.2

He was beheaded on the 26th of July, 1547. The execu
tion instead of terrifying the Libertines made them more
furious than ever. Three days afterwards the Council was
informed that more than twenty young men had entered into
a conspiracy to throw Calvin and his colleagues into the
Rhone. He could not walk the streets without being insulted
and threatened.

Two or three years after the death of Gruet, a treatise of
his was discovered full of horrible blasphemies against Christ,
the Virgin Mary, the Prophets and Apostles, against the
Scriptures, and all religion. He aimed to show that the
founders of Judaism and Christianity were criminals, and
that Christ was justly crucified. Some have confounded
this treatise with the book " De tribus Impostoribus" which
dates from the age of Emperor Frederick II., and puts

1 In the case of Gentilis and Servet, however, no mention is made of the
torture.

2 The sentence of condemnation {Opera, XII. 567) reads: " Par jceste
nostre diffinitive sentence, laquelle donnons icy par escript, toy Jaque Gruet con-
dampnons a debvoyr estre mene au lieu de Champel et illect debvoyer avoyer tranche
la teste de dessus les espanles, et ton corps attache aut gibet et la teste cloye en jcelluy
et (tinsy jiniras tes jours pour donner exemple aux aultres qui tel cas vouldroyent
commestre." The charges assigned are blasphemy against God, offence against
the civil magistracy, threats to the ministers of God, and "crime de leze majeste
meritant puynition corporelle."

504 THE INFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Moses, Christ, and Mohammed on a level as religious im
postors.

Gruet's book was, at Calvin's advice, publicly burnt by the
hangman before Gruet's house, May 22, 1550. J

2. AMI PERRIN (Amy Pierre), the military chief (captain-
general) of the Republic, was the most popular and influen
tial leader of the Patriotic party. He had been one of the
earliest promoters of the Reformation, though from political
rather than religious motives ; he had protected Farel
against the violence of the priests, and had been appointed
deputy to Strassburg to bring Calvin back to Geneva.2 He
was one of the six lay-members who, with the ministers,
drew up the Ecclesiastical Ordinances of 1542, and for some
time he supported Calvin in his reforms. He could wield
the sword, but not the pen. He was vain, ambitious, pre
tentious, and theatrical. Calvin called him, in derision, the
^tage-emperor, who played now the " Ocesar comicus" and
now the " Ccesar tragicus" 3

1 The sources for the case of Gruet are the acts of the criminal process
and sentence, printed in Opera, XII. 563-568 (in French) ; letters of Calvin to
Viret, July 2, 24, 1547 (in Opera, XII. 545, 559, in Bonnet II. 108 and 114);
Calvin's report on the blasphemous book of Gruet, in Opera, XIII. 568-572 (in
French, also printed in Henry, II. 120, and in Letters by Jules Bonnet, French
Ed., I. 311; English ed., II. 254) ; Reg. du Conseil, July 25, 1547, and May 22,
1550, noticed in Annal. 409, 465. — Of modern writers, see Henry (II. 410, 439,
141 sqq. ; abridged in Stebbing's translation, II. 64 sqq., without the Beilage) ;
Audin, ch. XXXVI. (pp. 396 sqq. of the English translation) ; Dyer, 213 sqq.;
and Stahelin, I. 399 sqq.

2 Oct. 21, 1540. A day afterwards, Bufour was appointed by the Council,
and went in his place. Annal. 267. See above, p. 430.

3 Beza calls him " vanissimus, sed audax et ambitiosus" (XXI. 138). Audin,
the patron of all the enemies of Calvin, describes Perrin as "a man of noble
nature, who wore the sword with great grace, dressed in good taste, and con
versed with much facility ; but a boaster at table and at the Council, where
he deafened every one with his boastful loquacity, his fits of self-love, and
his theatrical airs. ... As to the rest, like all men of this stamp, he had an
excellent heart, was devoted as a friend, with cool blood, and patriotic even
to extremes. At table it was his delight to imitate the Reformer, elongating
his visage, winking his eyes, and assuming the air of an anchorite of the
Thebaid" (p. 390). Perrin's chief defender is the younger Galiffe.

§ 109. THE LEADERS OF THE LIBERTINES. 505

Perrin's wife, Francesca, was a daughter of Frar^ois Favre,
who had taken a prominent part in the political struggle
against Savoy, but mistook freedom for license, and hated
Calvin as a tyrant and a hypocrite. His whole family
shared in this hatred. Francesca had an excessive fondness
for dancing and revelry, a violent temper, and an abusive
tongue. Calvin called her " Penthesilea " (the queen of the
Amazons who fought a battle against the Greeks, and was
slain by Achilles), and " a prodigious fury." 1

He found out too late that it is foolish and dangerous to
quarrel with a woman. He forgot Christ's conduct towards
the adulteress, and Mary Magdalene.

A disgraceful scene which took place at a wedding in the
house of the widow Balthazar at Belle Rive, brought upon
the family of Favre, who were present, the censure of the
Consistory and the punishment of the Council. Perrin, his
wife and her father were imprisoned for a few weeks in
April, 1546. Favre refused to make any confession, and went
to prison, shouting : " Liberty ! Liberty ! I would give a
thousand crowns to have a general council." 2 Perrin made
an humble apology to the Consistory. Calvin plainly told
the Favre family that as long as they lived in Geneva they

1 " Prodigiosafuria." Letter to Farel, Sept. 1, 1546 (in Opera, XII. 377 sq.,
and Bonnet, II. 56). In the same letter he says: "She shamelessly under
takes the defence of all crimes." She did not spare Calvin's wife, and calum-
niously asserted among her own friends that Idelette must have been a harlot
because Calvin confessed, at the baptism of his infant, that she and her former
husband had been Anabaptists. So Calvin reports to Farel, Aug. 21, 1547 (in
Ojtera, XII. 580 sq.; Bonnet, II. 124). Audin apologizes for Francesca, as
" one of those women whom our old Corneille would have taken for heroine? ;
excitable, choleric, fond of pleasure, enamoured of dancing, and hating Calvin
as Luther hated a monk" (p. 300).

2 Calvin reminded Francesca on that occasion that " her father had been
already convicted of one adultery [in 1531], that the proof of another was
at hand, and that there was a strong rumor of a third. I stated that her
brother had openly contemned and derided both the Council and the minis
ters." Letter to Farel, April, 1546. She told him in reply : " Mediant homme,
vous voulez boire le sang de notre famille, mats vous sorlirez de Geneve avant
nous." See the notes in Opera, XII. 834.

506 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

must obey the laws of Geneva, though every one of them
wore a diadem.1

From this time on Perrin stood at the head of the opposi
tion to Calvin. He loudly denounced the Consistory as a
popish tribunal. He secured so much influence over the
Council that a majority voted, in March, 1547, to take the
control of Church discipline into their own hands. But
Calvin made such a vigorous resistance that it was deter
mined eventually to abide by the established Ordinances.2

Perrin was sent as ambassador to Paris (April 26, 1547),
and was received there with much distinction. The Cardinal
du Bellay sounded him as to whether some French troops
under his command could be stationed at Geneva to frustrate
the hostile designs of the German emperor against Switzer
land. He gave a conditional consent. This created a suspi
cion against his loyalty.

During his absence, Madame Perrin and her father were
again summoned before the Consistory for bacchanalian con
duct (June 23, 1547). Favre refused to appear. Francesca
denied the right of the court to take cognizance of her
private life. When remonstrated with, she flew into a pas
sion, and abused the preacher, Abel Poupin, as " a reviler, a
slanderer of her father, a coarse swine-herd, and a malicious
liar.*' She was again imprisoned, but escaped with one of
her sons. Meeting Abel Poupin at the gate of the city she
insulted him afresh and " even more shamefully than before." 3

1 See Calvin's letters to Farel, April, 1546, and Sept. 1, 1546 (in Opera,
XII. 334 sqq., 377 sq., and Bonnet II. 38, 56), and extracts from the Registers
of the Consistory and the Council in Annal. 377 sqq. Comp. Dyer, 208 sq. ;
Audin, 391 sq. Audin gives a lively description of the wedding and dancing
at Belle Rive, and the examination before the Consistory.

2 See the extracts from the Reg, du Conseil March and April, 1547, in
Annal. 399-406.

3 Calvin to Viret, July 2, 1547 (Opera, XII. 545, Bonnet, II. 108). Comp.
Annal. 407 sq.; Gaberel, I. 387; Roget, II. 284. Bonivard and after him
Gaberel report that Francesca rushed with her horse against Abel, who barely
escaped serious injury. See note 6 in Opera, XII. 546.

§ 109. THE LEADERS OF THE LIBERTINES. 507

On the 27th of June, 1547, Gruet's threatening libel was
published.1 Calvin was reported to have been killed. He
received letters from Burgogne and Lyons that the Children
of Geneva had offered five hundred crowns for his head.2

On his return from Paris, Perrin was capitally indicted on
a charge of treason, and of intending to quarter two hundred
French cavalry, under his own command, at Geneva. His
excuse was that he had accepted the command of these troops
with the reservation of the approval of the government of
Geneva. Bonivard, the old soldier of liberty and prisoner
of Chillon, took part against Perrin. The ambassadors of
Bern endeavored to divert the storm from the head of Perrin
to the French ambassador Maigret the Magnifique. Perrin
was expelled from the Council, and the office of captain-
general was suppressed, but he was released from prison,
together with his wife and father-in-law, Nov. 29, 1547. 3

The Libertines summoned all their forces for a reaction.
They called a meeting of the Council of Two Hundred, where
they expected most support. A violent scene took place on
Dec. 16, 1547, in the Senate house, when Calvin, unarmed
and at the risk of his life, appeared in the midst of the armed
crowd and called upon them, if they designed to shed blood,
to begin with him. He succeeded, by his courage and elo
quence, in calming the wild storm and preventing a disgrace
ful carnage. It was a sublime victory of reason over passion,
of moral over physical force.4

1 See above, p. 502.

2 Calvin to. Farel, Aug. 21, 1547 (Opera, XII. 580; Bonnet, II . 123 and
note) ; Reg. of the Consistory, Sept. 1, 1547.

3 Re'g. du Conseil : " Perrin est reldche vu sa long detention et crie tnerci."
Annal. 417. Fran9ois Favre had been previously deprived of the rights of
citizenship (Oct. 5) on the charge of exciting an emeute against the French
refugees, and calling Calvin " le grand diable." Ibid. 413 sq.

4 Dec. 16 (not Sept. 16) is the date given in the Reg. of the Venerable
Company, quoted in Annal. 418. Beza briefly alludes to the scene; Calvin
gives an account of it in a letter to Viret, dated Dec. 17, 1547, a day after
the occurrence (in Opera, XII. 632 sq.). This letter is misdated, Dec. 14,
by Bonnet (II. 134, apparently a typographical error), and Sept. 17 by

508 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

The ablest of the detractors of Calvin cannot help paying
here an involuntary tribute to him and to the truth of history.
This is his dramatic account.

" The Council of the Two Hundred was assembled. Never
had any session been more tumultuous ; the parties, weary of
speaking, began to appeal to arms. The people heard the
appeal. Calvin appears, unattended; he is received at the
lower part of the hall with cries of death. He folds his arms,
and looks the agitators fixedly in the face. Not one of them
dares strike him. Then, advancing through the midst of the
groups, with his breast uncovered : 4 If you want blood,' says
he, ; there are still a few drops here ; strike, then ! ' Not an
arm is raised. Calvin then slowly ascends the stairway to
the Council of the Two Hundred. The hall was on the
point of being drenched with blood; swords were flashing.
On beholding the Reformer, the weapons were lowered, and
a few words sufficed to calm the agitation. Calvin, taking
the arm of one of the councillors, again descends the stairs,
and cries out to the people that he wishes to address them.
He does speak, and with such energy and feeling, that tears
flow from their eyes. They embrace each other, and the
crowd retires in silence. The patriots had lost the day.
From that moment, it was easy to foretell that victory would
remain with the Reformer. The Libertines, who had shown
themselves so bold when it was a question of destroying
some front of a Catholic edifice, overturning some saint's
niche, or throwing down an old wooden cross weakened by
age, trembled like women before this man, who, in fact, on
this occasion, exhibited something of the Homeric heroism." 1

Notwithstanding this triumph, Calvin did not trust his
enemies, and expressed in letters to Farel and Viret even the

Henry (II. 434) and Dyer (p. 219). The last error crept into the Latin edi
tions, against the manuscripts, which give Dec. 17. The letter is defective
at the beginning and was first published by Beza. Galiffe overlooked it.
See the notes of the Strassbur&r e'li^r«s, XII. 633.
1 Audin, Life of Calvin, p. 394.

§ 109. THE LEADERS OF THE LIBERTINES. 509

fear that he could no longer maintain his position unless
God stretch forth his hand for his protection.1

A sort of truce was patched up between the contending
parties. " Our gi-devant Caesar (hesternus noster Ccesar),"
Calvin wrote to Farel, Dec. 28, 1547, " denied that he had
any grudge against me, and I immediately met him half-way
and pressed out the matter from the sore. In a grave and
moderate speech, I used, indeed, some sharp reproofs (punc-
tiones acutas), but not of a nature to wound; yet though he
grasped my hand whilst promising to reform, I still fear that
I have spoken to deaf ears." 2

In the next year, Calvin was censured by the Council for
saying, in a private letter to Viret which had been inter
cepted, that the Genevese " under pretence of Christ wanted
to rule without Christ," and that he had to combat their
" hypocrisy." He called to his aid Viret and Farel to make
a sort of apology.3

Perrin behaved quietly, and gained an advantage from
this incident. He was restored to his councillorship and the
office of captain-general (which had been abolished). He
was even elected First Syndic, in February, 1549. He held
that position also during the trial of Servetus, and opposed
the sentence of death in the Council (1553).

Shortly after the execution of Servetus, the Libertines
raised a demonstration against Farel, who had come to
Geneva and preached a very severe sermon against them
(Nov. 1, 1553) .4 Philibert Berthelier and his brother Fran-

1 See the extracts quoted on p. 495.

2 Opera, XII. 642 sq. : " Tametsi resipiscentiam manu in manum implicita
promisit, vereor, ne frustra surdo cecinerim fabulam" Dyer (p. 221) misdates
this letter Dec. 2 (probably a typographical error).

8 Registers of Council for October, 1548, in Annal. 436-438. About the
same time the wife of Calvin's brother, Antoine, was imprisoned on the
charge of adultery. Ibid. 441.

4 He was charged with saying that " la jeunesse de cette cit€ sont pires que les
brigands, meurtriers, larrons, luxurieux, atheists." Reg. of Nov. 3, 1553, in
Annal. 559.

510 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

^ois Daniel, who had charge of the mint, stirred up the
laborers to throw Farel into the Rhone. But his friends
formed a guard around him, and his defence before the
Council convinced the audience of his innocence. It was
resolved that all enmity should be forgotten and buried at
a banquet. Perrin, the chief Syndic, in a sense of weakness,
or under the impulse of his better feelings, begged Farel's
pardon, and declared that he would ever regard him as his
spiritual father and pastor.1

After this time Calvin's friends gained the ascendency in
the Council. A large number of religious refugees were
admitted to the rights of citizenship.

Perrin, then a member of the Little Council, and his
friends, Peter Vandel and Philibert Berthelier, determined
on rule or ruin, now concocted a desperate and execrable
conspiracy, which proved their overthrow. They proposed
to kill all foreigners who had fled to Geneva for the sake of
religion, together with their Genevese sympathizers, on a Sun
day while people were at church. But, fortunately, the plot
was discovered before it was ripe for execution. When
the rioters were to be tried before the Council of the Two
Hundred, Perrin and several other ringleaders had the
audacity to take their places as judges; but when he saw
that matters were taking a serious turn in favor of law and
order, he fled from Geneva, together with Vandel and
Berthelier. They were summoned by the public herald, but
refused to appear. On the day appointed for the trial five of
the fugitives were condemned to death; Perrin, moreover,
to have his right hand cut off, with which he had seized the
baton of the Syndic at the riot. The sentence was executed
in effigy in June, 1555.2

1 Comp. the action of the Council, Nov. 13, in Anna!. 561 and 562.

2 Reg. du Conseil, June 3, 1555, in AnnaL 608 : " Perrin est condamnf par
contumace quil ayt le poing du bras droit duquel il a attente aux bastons sindicalz
cope: et tous tans ledit Perrin que Belthesard, Chabod, Verna, et Michalet la
teste cop€ : les testes et ledit poing clone's au gibet et les corps mis en quartier iouxtt
la coustume et condamnez a tous despens damps et interestz."

§ 109. THE LEADERS OF THE LIBERTINES. 511

Their estates were confiscated, and their wives banished
from Geneva. The office of captain-general was again abol
ished to avoid the danger of a military dictatorship.

But the government of Bern protected the fugitives,
and allowed them to commit outrages on Genevese citizens
within their reach, and to attack Calvin and Geneva with
all sorts of reproaches and calumnies.

Thus the "comic Caesar" ended as the "tragic Caesar."
An impartial biographer of Calvin calls the last chapter in
Perrin's career "a caricature of the Catilinarian conspiracy."1

3. The case of PIERRE AMEAUX shows a close connection
between the political and religious Libertines. He was a
member of the Council of Two Hundred. He sought and
obtained a divorce from his wife, who was condemned to
perpetual imprisonment for the theory and practice of free-
lovism of the worst kind. But he hated Calvin's theology
and discipline. At a supper party in his own house he
freely indulged in drink, and roundly abused Calvin as a
teacher of false doctrine, as a very bad man, and nothing but
a Picard.2

For this offence he was imprisoned by the Council for two
months and condemned to a fine of sixty dollars. He made
an apology and retracted his words. But Calvin was not sat
isfied, and demanded a second trial. The Council condemned
him to a degrading punishment called the amende honorable,
namely, to parade through the streets in his shirt, with bare
head, and a lighted torch in his hand, and to ask on bended
knees the pardon of God, of the Council, and of Calvin. This
harsh judgment provoked a popular outbreak in the quarter
of St. Gervais, but the Council proceeded in a body to the

1 Dyer, p. 397.

2 He said, according to the Registers of the Council, Jan. 27, 1546, "quc
M. Calvin estoyt meschant homme et nestoi/t que un picard et prescho'/t faulce
doctrine," etc. Corap. on his case Anna!. 368, 370, 371. Audin calls Ameaux
"a man of the bar-room with a wicked tongue and a soul destitute of energy"
(p. 386). He gives quite an amusing account of the drinking party.

512 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

spot and ordered the wine-shops to be closed and a gibbet to
be erected to frighten the mob. The sentence on Ameaux
was executed April 5, 1546. Two preachers, Henri de la
Mare and Aime* Maigret, who had taken part in the drinking
scene, were deposed. The former had said before the Coun
cil that Calvin was " a good and virtuous man, and of great
intellect, but sometimes governed by his passions, impatient,
full of hatred, and vindictive." The latter had committed
more serious offences.1

4. PIERRE VANDEL was a handsome, brilliant, and frivo
lous cavalier, and loved to exhibit himself with a retinue of
valets and courtesans, with rings on his fingers and golden
chains on his breast. He had been active in the expulsion
of Calvin, and opposed him after his recall. He was impris
oned for his debaucheries and insolent conduct before the Con
sistory. He was Syndic in 1548. He took a leading part in the
conspiracy of Perrin and shared his condemnation and exile.2

5. PHILIBERT BERTHELIER (or Bertelier, Bertellier), an
unworthy son of the distinguished patriot who, in 1519, had
been beheaded for his part in the war of independence,
belonged to the most malignant enemies of Calvin. He had
gone to Noyon, if we are to believe the assertion of Bolsec, to
bring back scandalous reports concerning the early life of the
Reformer, which the same Bolsec published thirteen years
after Calvin's death, but without any evidence.3 If the
Libertines had been in possession of such information, they
would have made use of it. Berthelier is characterized by
Beza as " a man of the most consummate impudence " and
"guilty of many iniquities." He was excommunicated by

1 Annul. 378 and 380. The ministers interceded in behalf of De la Mare,
and the Council gave him six dollars (ecus}. Maigret was found guilty of
neglecting his duties and visiting houses of ill fame.

2 Annal. 411. 611 sq. ; Opera, XII. 547, note 14, with references to Galiffe,
Bonivard, and Roget.

3 See above, p. 302 sq. That abominable slander about sodomy, which
even fhlifTe rejects. Audin and Spalding are not ashamed to repeat.

§ 109. THE LEADERS OF THE LIBERTINES. 513

the Consistory in 1551 for abusing Calvin, for not going to
church, and other offences, and for refusing to make any
apology. Calvin was absent during these sessions, owing
to sickness. Berthelier appealed to the Council, of which
he was the secretary. The Council at first confirmed the
decision of the Consistory, but afterwards released him,
during the syndicate of Perrin and the trial of Servetus,
and gave him letters of absolution signed with the seal of
the Republic (1553). *

Calvin was thus brought into direct conflict with the
Council, and forced to the alternative of submission or dis
obedience ; in the latter case he ran the risk of a second and
final expulsion. But he was not the man to yield in such
a crisis. He resolved to oppose to the Council his inflexible
non possumus.

On the Sunday which followed the absolution of Berthelier,
the September communion was to be celebrated. Calvin
preached as usual in St. Peter's, and declared at the close of
the sermon that he would never profane the sacrament by
administering it to an excommunicated person. Then raising
his voice and lifting up his hands, he exclaimed in the words
of St. Chrysostom : " I will lay down my life ere these hands
shall reach forth the sacred things of God to those who have
been branded as his despisers."

This was another moment of sublime Christian heroism.

Perrin, who had some decent feeling of respect for religion
and for Calvin's character, was so much impressed by this
solemn warning that he secretly gave orders to Berthelier
not to approach the communion table. The communion was
celebrated, as Beza reports, "in profound" silence, and under
a solemn awe, as if the Deity himself had been visibly present
among them." 2

1 See extracts from the "Registers, March and April, 1551, and in Septem
ber, 1553, Annal. XXI. 475-479, 551 sq.

2 Comp. the Reg. of the Council, and of the Venerable Company, Sept. 2,
1553, in Annal. 551.

514 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

In the afternoon, Calvin, as for the last time, preached on
Paul's farewell address to the Ephesian Elders (Acts 20 : 31) ;
he exhorted the congregation to abide in the doctrine of
Christ, and declared his willingness to serve the Church and
each of its members, but added in conclusion : " Such is the
state of things here that this may be my last sermon to you ;
for they who are in power would force me to do what God
does not permit. I must, therefore, dearly beloved, like Paul,
commend you to God, and to the Word of his grace." l

These words made a deep impression even upon his worst
foes. The next day Calvin, with his colleagues and the
Presbytery, demanded of the Council to grant them an audi
ence before the people, as a law was attacked which had been
sanctioned by the General Assembly. The Council refused
the request, but resolved to suspend the decree by which the
power of excommunication was declared to belong to the
Council.

In the midst of this agitation the trial of Servetus was
going on, and was brought to a close by his death at the
stake, Oct. 27. A few days afterwards (Nov. 3), Berthelier
renewed his request to be admitted to the Lord's Table — he
who despised religion. The Council which had condemned
the heretic, was not quite willing to obey Calvin as a legisla
tor, and wished to retain the power of excommunication in
their own hands. Yet, in order to avoid a rupture with the
ministers, who would not yield to any compromise, the
Council resolved to solicit the opinions of four Swiss cantons
on the subject.2

Bullinger, in behalf of the Church and magistracy of
Zurich, replied in December, substantially approving of
Calvin's view, though he admonished him privately against
undue severity. The magistrates of Bern replied that they

1 The sermon was taken down by a stenographer, and translated into
Latin by Beza.

2 Reg. da Conseil, Nov. 7, 9, 23, 28, 1553, in Annal. 559-562.

§ 110. GENEVA REGENERATED. 515

had no excommunication in their Church. The answers of
the two other cantons are lost, but seem to have been rather
favorable to Calvin's cause.

In the meantime matters assumed a more promising aspect.
On Jan. 1, 1554, at a grand dinner given by the Council and
judges, Calvin being present, a desire for peace was univer
sally expressed. On the second of February the Council of
Two Hundred swore, with uplifted hands, to conform to the
doctrines of the Reformation, to forget the past, to renounce
all hatred and animosity, and to live together in unity.

Calvin regarded this merely as a truce, and looked for
further troubles. He declared before the Council that he
readily forgave all his enemies, but could not sacrifice the
rights of the Consistory, and would rather leave Geneva.
The irritation continued in 1554. The opposition broke out
again in the conspiracy against the foreigners and the coun
cil, which has been already described. The plot failed.
Berthelier was, with Perrin, condemned to death, but escaped
with him the execution of justice by flight.1

This was the end of Libertinism in Geneva.

§ 110. G-eneva Regenerated. Testimonies Old and New.

The final result of this long conflict with Libertinism is
the best vindication of Calvin. Geneva came out of it a new
city, and with a degree of moral and spiritual prosperity
which distinguished her above any other Christian city for
several generations. What a startling contrast she presents,
for instance, to Rome, the city of the vicar of Christ and his
cardinals, as described by Roman Catholic writers of the
sixteenth century! If ever in this wicked world the ideal
of Christian society can be realized in a civil community

1 Reg. du Conseil, Aug. 6, 1555 (in Annal 611 sq.) : " Philibert Bertellier,
P. Vandel, et J. B. Sept condamnes a mort par contumace, Michael Sept au ban-
issement perpetuel, sans peine de mort ; six autres a la meme peine ; deux a dix an*
at banissement, et tous aux de'pens."

516 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

with a mixed population, it was in Geneva from the middle
of the sixteenth to the middle of the eighteenth century,
when the revolutionary and infidel genius of Rousseau (a
native of Geneva) and of Voltaire (who resided twenty years
in the neighborhood, on his estate at Ferney) began to
destroy the influence of the Reformer.

After the final collapse of the Libertine party in 1555, the
peace was not seriously disturbed, and Calvin's work pro
gressed without interruption. The authorities of the State
were as zealous for the honor of the Church and the glory of
Christ as the ministers of the gospel. The churches were
well filled; the Word of God was preached daily; family
worship was the rule ; prayer and singing of Psalms never
ceased; the whole city seemed to present the aspect of a
community of sincere, earnest Christians who practised what
they believed. Every Friday a spiritual conference and
experience meeting, called the " Congregation," was held in
St. Peter's, after the model of the meetings of "prophesying,"
which had been introduced in Zurich and Bern. Peter Paul
Vergerius, the former papal nuncio, who spent a short time
in Geneva, was especially struck with these conferences.
"All the ministers," he says,1 "and many citizens attend.
One of the preachers reads and briefly explains a text from
the Scriptures. Another expresses his views on the subject,
and then any member may make a contribution if so disposed.
You see, it is an imitation of that custom in the Corinthian
Church of which Paul speaks, and I have received much
edification from these public colloquies."

The material prosperity of the city was not neglected.
Greater cleanliness was introduced, which is next to godli
ness, and promotes it. Calvin insisted on the removal of all
filth from the houses and the narrow and crooked streets.
He induced the magistracy to superintend the markets, and

1 Letter in the Zurich library, quoted by Gaberel, I. 512, and Stahelin,
I. 364.

§ 110. GENEVA REGENERATED. 517

to prevent the sale of unhealthy food, which was to be cast
into the Rhone. Low taverns and drinking shops were
abolished, and intemperance diminished. Mendicancy on
the streets was prohibited. A hospital and poor-house was
provided and well conducted. Efforts were made to give
useful employment to every man that could work. Calvin
urged the Council in a long speech, Dec. 29, 1544, to intro
duce the cloth and silk industry, and two months afterwards
he presented a detailed plan, in which he recommended to
lend to the Syndic, Jean Ami Curtet, a sufficient sum from
the public treasury for starting the enterprise. The factories
were forthwith established and soon reached the highest
degree of prosperity. The cloth and silk of Geneva were
highly prized in Switzerland and France, and laid the foun
dation for the temporal wealth of the city. When Lyons,
by the patronage of the French crown, surpassed the little
Republic in the manufacture of silk, Geneva had already
begun to make up for the loss by the manufacture of watches,
and retained the mastery in this useful industry until 1885,
when American machinery produced a successful rivalry.1

Altogether, Geneva owes her moral and temporal pros
perity, her intellectual and literary activity, her social refine
ment, and her world-wide fame very largely to the reformation
and discipline of Calvin. He set a high and noble example
of a model community. It is impossible, indeed, to realize
his church ideal in a large country, even with all the help
of the civil government. The Puritans attempted it in Eng
land and in New England, but succeeded only in part, and
only for a short period. But nothing should prevent a pastor
from making an effort in his own congregation on the volun
tary principle. Occasionally we find parallel cases in small
communities under the guidance of pastors of exceptional

1 Gaberel, I. 524; Stahelin, I. 372. Even now the Swiss watches (of
Geneva and Neuchatel) are considered the best of those made wholly or mainly
by hand labor.

518 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

genius and consecration, such as Oberlin in the Steinthal,
Harms in Hermannsburg, and Lohe in Neudettelsau, who
exerted an inspiring influence far beyond their fields of labor.

Let us listen to some testimonies of visitors who saw with
their own eyes the changes wrought in Geneva through
Calvin's influence.

William Farel, who knew better than any other man the
state of Geneva under Roman Catholic rule, and during the
early stages of reform before the arrival of Calvin, visited
the city again in 1557, and wrote to Ambrosius Blaurer that
he would gladly listen and learn there with the humblest
of the people, and that "he would rather be the last in
Geneva than the first anywhere else." 1

John Knox, the Reformer of Scotland, who studied several
years in Geneva as a pupil of Calvin (though five years his
senior), and as pastor of the English congregation, wrote
to his friend Locke, in 1556 : " In my heart I could have
wished, yea, I cannot cease to wish, that it might please God
to guide and conduct yourself to this place where, I neither
fear nor am ashamed to say, is the most perfect school of
Christ that ever was in the earth since the days of the Apostles.
In other places I confess Christ to be truly preached; but
manners and religion to be so seriously reformed, I have not
yet seen in any other place besides." 2

Dr. Valentine Andrese (1586-1654), a bright and shining
light of the Lutheran Church of Wiirtemberg (a grandson of
Jacob Andrese, the chief author of the Lutheran Formula
of Concord), a man full of glowing love to Christ, visited
Geneva in 1610, nearly fifty years after Calvin's death, with
the prejudices of an orthodox Lutheran against Calvinism,
and was astonished to find in that city a state of religion

1 Kirchhofer, Farel's Leben, II. 125.

2 Thomas M'Crie, Life of John Knox, p. 129 (Philadelphia ed. 1845). I
quoted a sentence from this letter by anticipation on p. 263. but cannot omit
it at this place.

§ 110. GENEVA REGENERATED. 519

which came nearer to his ideal of a Christocracy than any
community he had seen in his extensive travels, and even in
his German fatherland.

" When I was in Geneva," he writes, " I observed some
thing great which I shall remember and desire as long as
I live. There is in that place not only the perfect institute
of a perfect republic, but, as a special ornament, a moral disci
pline, which makes weekly investigations into the conduct,
and even the smallest transgressions of the citizens, first
through the district inspectors, then through the Seniors,
and finally through the magistrates, as the nature of the
offence and the hardened state of the offender may require.
All cursing and swearing, gambling, luxury, strife, hatred,
fraud, etc., are forbidden ; while greater sins are hardly
heard of. What a glorious ornament of the Christian relig
ion is such a purity of morals ! We must lament with tears
that it is wanting with us, and almost totally neglected. If
it were not for the difference of religion, I would have
forever been chained to that place by the agreement in
morals, and I have ever since tried to introduce something
like it into our churches. No less distinguished than the
public discipline was the domestic discipline of my landlord,
Scarron, with its daily devotions, reading of the Scriptures,
the fear of God in word and in deed, temperance in meat and
drink and dress. I have not found greater purity of morals
even in my father's home." 1

A stronger and more impartial testimony of the deep and
lasting effect of Calvin's discipline so long after his death
could hardly be imagined.

1 See his autobiography, written in 1642, and his " Respublica Christianopoli-
1ana," or" Christianopolis," 1619, — a description of a Christian model common
wealth, dedicated to John Arndt, the author of "True Christianity/' Comp.
Hossbach, Das Leben Vol. Andrew, p. 10; Henry, p. 196 (small biography);
Tholuck's article in Herzog, I. 388 sqq. ; Schaff, Creeds, I. 460 (which gives
the German original). Andreae's memory was revived by the great Herder.
Spener said: " If I could raise nny one from the dead for the welfare of the
Church, it would be Andreae."

520 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

NOTES. MODERN TESTIMONIES.

The condemnation of Calvin's discipline and his conduct toward the Liber
tines has been transplanted to America by two dignitaries of the Roman
Church — Dr. John McGill, bishop of Richmond, the translator of Audin's
Life of Calvin (Louisville, n. d.), and Dr. M. S. Spalding, archbishop of Bal
timore (between 1864 and 1872), in his History of the Protestant Reformation
(Louisville, 1860), 8th ed., Baltimore, 1875. This book is not a history, but a
chronique scandaleuse of the Reformation, and unworthy of a Christian scholar.
Dr. Spalding devotes twenty-two pages to Calvin (vol. I. 370-392), besides an
appendix on Rome and Geneva, and a letter addressed to Merle d'Aubigne
and Bungener (pp. 495-530). He ignores his Commentaries and Institutes,
which have commanded the admiration even of eminent Roman Catholic
divines, and simply repeats, with some original mistakes and misspellings, the
slanders of Bolsec and Audin, which have long since been refuted.

"Calvin," he says, "crushed the liberties of the people in the name of
liberty. A foreigner, he insinuated himself into Geneva and, serpent-like,
coiled himself around the very heart of the Republic which had given him
hospitable shelter. He thus stung the very bosom which had warmed him.
He was as watchful as a tiger preparing to pounce on its prey, and as treach
erous. . . . His reign in Geneva was truly a reign of terror. He combined
the cruelty of Danton and Robespierre with the eloquence of Marat and
Mirabeau. . . . He was worse than 'the Chalif of Geneva,' as Audin calls
him — he was a very Nero ! . . . He was a monster of impurity and iniquity.
The story of his having been guilty of a crime of nameless turpitude at
Noyon, though denied by his friends, yet rests upon very respectable authority.
Bolsec, a contemporary writer, relates it as certain. . . . He ended his life
in despair, and died of a most shameful and disgusting disease which God
has threatened to rebellious and accursed reprobates." The early Calvinists
were hypocrites, and "their boasted austerity was little better than a sham,
if it was not even a cloak to cover enormous wickedness. They exhibit their
own favorite doctrine of total depravity in its fullest practical development ! "
The archbishop, however, is kind enough to add in conclusion (p. 391), that
he " would not be understood as wishing to reflect upon the character or con
duct of the present professors of Calvinistic doctrines, many of whom are
men estimable for their civic virtues."

The best answer to such a caricature, which turns the very truth into a lie,
is presented in the facts of this chapter. With ignorance and prejudice even
the gods contend in vain. But it is proper, at this place, to record the judg
ments of impartial historians who have studied the sources, and cannot be
charged with any doctrinal bias in favor of Calvinism. Comp. other testi
monies in § 68, pp. 270 sqq.

GIESELER, one of the coolest and least dogmatic of church historians, says
(K. G. III. P. I. p. 389) : " Durch Calvin's eiserne Festigkeit wurden Genfs
Sitten ganz umgewandelt : so dankte die Stadt der Reformation ihre Freiheit, ihre
Ordnung, und ihren aufbliihenden Wohlstand"

From the Article "Calvin" in La France Protestante (III. 530): " Unc
telle organisation, un pareil pouvoir sur les individus, une autorite' aussi parfatte-

§ 110. GENEVA REGENERATED. 521

ment inquisitor idle nous indignent aujourd'hui ; c'etait chose toute simple avec
I'ardeur religieuse du XVIe siecle. Le consistoire atteignit le but que Calvin s'e'tait
propose. En moins de trois generations, les moeurs de Geneve subirent une meta
morphose complete. A la mondanite' naturelle succe'da cette auste'rite' un pen raide,
cette gravite un pen e'tudie'e qui caracte'riserent, dans les siecles passes, les disciples
du reformateur. L'histoire ne nous offre que deux hommes qui aient su imprimer
a tout un peuple le cachet particulier de leur genie, : Lycurgue et Calvin, deux
grands caracteres qui offrent plus d'une analogic. Que de Jades plaisanteries ne
s'est-on pas permises sur I'esprit qenevois ! et Geneve est devenue un foyer de
lumieres et d ^'mancipation intellectuelle, me me pour ses de'tracteurs."

MARC-MONNIER.

Marc-Monnier was born in Florence of French parents, 1829, distinguished as a poet and
historian, professor of literature in the University of Geneva, and died 1885. His
" La Renaissance de Dante a Luther" (1884) was crowned by the French Academy.

From "La Re'forme, de Luther a Shakespeare" (Paris, 1885), pp. 70-72.

" Calvin fut done de son temps comme les papes, les empereurs et tons les rois,
meme Francois 2er, qui brujerent des he're'tiques, mais ceux qui ne voient dans Calvin
que le meurtrier de Servet ne le connaissent pas. Cefut une conviction, une intelli
gence, une des forces les plus e'tonnantes de ce grand siecle : pour le peser selon son
me'rite, il faut jeter dans la balance autre chose que nos tendresses et nos pitie's. 11
faut voir tout I'homme, et le voir tel qu'ilfut : ' un corps frele et de'bile, sobre jusqu'a
I'exces,' ronge' par des maladies et des injirmite's qui devaient I'emporter avant le
temps, mais acharne' a sa tdche, * ne vivant que pour le travail et ne travaillant que
pour e'tablir le royaume de Dieu sur la terre ; devout a cette cause jusqu'a lui tout
sacrijier : ' le repos, la sante', la vie, plus encore : les etudes favorites, et avec une
infatigable activite' qui e'pouvantait ses adversaires, menant de front, a brides abat-
tues, religion, morale, politique, legislation, litte'rature, enseignement, pre'dication,
pamphlets, ozuvres de longue haleine, correspondance e'norme avec le roi et la reine
de Navarre, la duchesse de Ferrare, le roi Francois 2er, avec d'autres princes encore,
avec les reformateur 's, les the'ologiens, les humanistes, les dmes travaille'es et charge'es,
les pauvres prisonnieres de Paris. II e'crivait dans I' Europe entiere ; deux mille
iZglises s'organisaient selon ses ide'es ou celles de ses amis,- des missionnaires,
anime's de son souffle, partaient pour I'Anqleterre, V Ecosse, les Pai/s-Sas, l en
remerciant Dieu et lui chantant des psaumes.' En meme temps cet homme sen!, ct
malade surmene' s'emparait a Geneve d'un peuple allegre, raisonneur, indiscipline',
le tenait dans sa main et le forcait d'obe'ir. Sans etre rnagistrat ni meme citoyen
(il ne le devint qiCaux dernieres annees de sa vie), sans mandat officiel ni titre
reconnu, sans autre autorite que celle de son nom et d'une volonte inflexible, il
commandait aux consciences, il gouvernait les maisons, il s'imposait, avec une foul e
de refugies venus de toute part, a une population qui n'a jamais aime' les Grangers
ni les maitres ; il heurtait enftn de parti pris les coutumes, les traditions, les siis-
ceptibilite's nationales et il les brisoit. Non seulement il pesait sur les consciences et
les opinions, mais aussi sur les mo3iirs, proscrivait la luxure et meme le luxe, la
bijouterie, la soie et le velours, les cheveux longs, les coiffures frise'es, la bonne chere :
toute espece de plaisir et de distraction ; cependant, malgre' les haines et les colcres

522 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

suscitees par cette compression morale, ' le corps bris€, mais la tete haute,' il gouverna
longtemps les Genevois par Vautorite de son caractere et fat accompagne' a sa tombe
par le peuple tout entier. Voila I'homme dont il est facile de rire, mais qu'il importe
avant tout de connaitre.

" Calvin de'truisit Geneve pour la refaire a son image et, en de'pit de toutes les
revolutions^ cette reconstitution improvise'e dure encore : il existe aux portes de la
France une ville de strides croyances, de bonnes e'tudes et de bonnes moeurs : une
' cite' de Calvin.'"

A remarkable tribute from a scholar who was no theologian, and no clergy
man, but thoroughly at home in the history, literature, manners, and society
of Geneva. Marc-Monnier speaks also very highly of Calvin's merits as a
French classic, and quotes with approval the judgment of Paul Lacroix
(in his ed. of select (Euvres francoises de J. Calvin} : " Le style de Calvin est
un des plus grands styles du seizieme siecle : simple, correct, elegant, clair, inge'nieux,
anime', varie de formes et de tons, il a commence' a fixer la langue francaise pour
la prose, comme celui de Clement Marot I'avait fait pour les vers."

GEORGE BANCROFT.

George Bancroft, the American historian and statesman, born at Worcester, Mass., 1800,
died at Washington, 1891, served his country as secretary of the Navy, and ambassador
at London and Berlin, with the greatest credit.

" A word on Calvin, the Reformer." From his Literary and Historical Miscel
lanies (New York, 1855), pp. 405 sqq.

" It is intolerance only, which would limit the praise of Calvin to a single
sect, or refuse to reverence his virtues and regret his failings. He lived in
the time when nations were shaken to their centre by the excitement of the
Reformation ; when the fields of Holland and France were wet with the car
nage of persecution; when vindictive monarchs on the one side threatened
all Protestants with outlawry and death, and the Vatican, on the other, sent
forth its anathemas and its cry for blood. In that day, it is too true, the
influence of an ancient, long-established, hardly disputed error, the constant
danger of his position, the intense desire to secure union among the antago
nists of popery, the engrossing consciousness that his struggle was for the
emancipation of the Christian world, induced the great Reformer to defend
the use of the sword for the extirpation of heresy. Reprobating and lament
ing his adhesion to the cruel doctrine, which all Christendom had for centu
ries implicitly received, we may, as republicans, remember that Calvin was
not only the founder of a sect, but foremost among the most efficient of mod
ern republican legislators. More truly benevolent to the human race than
Solon, more self-denying than Lycurgus, the genius of Calvin infused endur
ing elements into the institutions of Geneva, and made it for the modern
world the impregnable fortress of popular liberty, the fertile seed-plot of
democracy.

" We boast of our common schools ; Calvin was the father of popular edu
cation, the inventor of the system of free schools. We are proud of the free
States that fringe the Atlantic. The pilgrims of Plymouth were Calvinists ;

§ 110. GENEVA REGENERATED. 528

the best influence in South Carolina came from the Calvinists of France.
William Penn was the disciple of the Huguenots ; the ships from Holland
that first brought colonists to Manhattan were filled with Calvinists. He that
will not honor the memory, and respect the influence of Calvin, knows but
little of the origin of American liberty.

"If personal considerations chiefly win applause, then no one merits our
sympathy and our admiration more than Calvin ; the young exile from France-
who achieved an immortality of fame before he was twenty-eight years of
age ; now boldly reasoning with the king of France for religious liberty ; now
venturing as the apostle of truth to carry the new doctrines into the heart of
Italy, and hardly escaping from the fury of papal persecution ; the purest
writer, the keenest dialectician of his century; pushing free inquiry to its
utmost verge, and yet valuing inquiry solely as the means of arriving at fixed
conclusions. The light of his genius scattered the mask of darkness which
superstition had held for centuries before the brow of religion. His probity
was unquestioned, his morals spotless. His only happiness consisted in his
' task of glory and of good ' ; for sorrow found its way into all his private
relations. He was an exile from his country ; he became for a season an
exile from his place of exile. As a husband he was doomed to mourn the
premature loss of his wife ; as a father he felt the bitter pang of burying his
only child. Alone in the world, alone in a strange land, he went forward in
his career with serene resignation and inflexible firmness ; no love of ease
turned him aside from his vigils; no fear of danger relaxed the nerve of
his eloquence ; no bodily infirmities checked the incredible activity of his
mind; and so he continued, year after year, solitary and feeble, yet toiling
for humanity, till after a life of glory, he bequeathed to his personal heirs, a
fortune, in books and furniture, stocks and money, not exceeding two hundred
dollars, and to the world, a purer reformation, a republican spirit in religion,
with the kindred principles of republican liberty."

CHAPTER XIV.

CALVIN'S THEOLOGY.
§ 111. Calvin9 s Commentaries.

I. CALVIN'S Commentaries on the Old Test, in Opera, vols. XXIII.-XLIV.,

on the New Test., vols. XLV. sqq. (not yet completed). Separate Latin
ed. of the Commentaries on the New Test, by Tholuck, Berlin, and Halle,
1831, 1836, etc., 7 vols. ; also on Genesis (by Hengstenberg, Berlin, 1838)
and on the Psalms (by Tholuck, 1830, 2 vols.). Translations in French
(by J. Girard, 1550, and others), English (by various writers, 1570 sqq.),
and other languages. Best English ed. by the " Calvin Translation Soc.,"
Edinburgh, 1843-55 (30 vols. for the O. T., 13 for the N. T.). See list in
Darling's Cyclopedia Bibliographica, sub "Calvin."

II. A. THOLUCK: Die Verdienste Calvin's ah Schriftausleger, in his "Lit. An-
zeiger," 1831, reprinted in his " Vermischte Schrif ten " (Hamburg, 1839),
vol. II. 330-360, and translated by Wm. Pringle (added to Com. on
Joshua in the Edinb. ed. 1854, pp. 345-375). — G. W. METER: Geschichte
der Schrifterklarung, II. 448-475. — D. G. ESCHER : De Calvino interprete,
Traj., 1840. — ED. RECSS: Calvin conside're comme exegete, in "Revue,"
VI. 223. — A. VESSON: Calvin exe'gete, Montaub, 1855. — E. STAHELIN:
Calvin, I. 182-198. — SCHAFF : Creeds of Christendom, I. 457-460. —
MERX : Joel, Halle, 1879, pp. 428-444. — FRED. W. FARRAR : History of
Interpretation (London, 1886), pp. 342-354.

CALVIN was an exegetical genius of the first order. His
commentaries are unsurpassed for originality, depth, per
spicuity, soundness, and permanent value. The Reformation
period Avas fruitful beyond any other in translations and
expositions of the Scripture. If Luther was the king of
translators, Calvin was the king of commentators. Poole,
in the preface to his Synopsis, apologizes for not referring
more frequently to Calvin, because others had so largely bor
rowed from him that to quote them was to quote him. Reuss,
the chief editor of his works and himself an eminent biblical
scholar, says that Calvin was " beyond all question the great-

524

§ 111. CALVIN'S COMMENTARIES. 525

est exegete of the sixteenth century." 1 Archdeacon Farrar
literally echoes this judgment.2 Diestel, the best historian
of Old Testament exegesis, calls him " the creator of genuine
exegesis." 3 Few exegetical works outlive their generation ;
those of Calvin are not likely to be superseded any more
than Chrysostom's Homilies for patristic eloquence, or Ben-
gel's G-nomon for pregnant and stimulating hints, or Matthew
Henry's Exposition for devotional purposes and epigrammatic
suggestions to preachers.4

Calvin began his series of Commentaries at Strassburg with
the Epistle to the Romans, on which his system of theology
is chiefly built. In the dedication to his friend and Hebrew
teacher Grynseus, at Basel (Oct. 18, 1539), he already lays
down his views of the best method of interpretation, namely,
comprehensive brevity, transparent clearness, and strict ad
herence to the spirit and letter of the author. He gradually

1 " Ohne alle Frage der grosste Exeget des (sechszehnteri) Jahrhunderts."
Geschichte der heil. Schriften des Neuen Test. p. 618 (6th ed. 1887).

2 " The greatest exegete and theologian of the Reformation was undoubtedly
Calvin." History of Interpretation, London, 1886, p. 342. Farrar quotes from
Keble a manuscript note of Hooker, who says that " the sense of Scripture
which Calvin alloweth " was held (in the Anglican Church) to be of more
force than if " ten thousand Augustins, Jeromes, Chrysostoms, Cyprians were
brought forth."

3 " Der Schb'pfer der achten Exegese." Diestel adds : " Johannes Calvin ragt
ebensowohl durch den Umfang seiner exegetischen Arbeiten wie durch eine seltene
Genialitat in der Auslegung hervor ; uniibertroffen in seinem Jahrhundert, bieten
seine Exegesen fur alle folgenden Zeiten noch bis heute einen reichen Stoff der
Schriftkenntniss dar." Geschichte des Alten Testaments in der christl. Kirche,
Jena, 1869, p. 267. Dr. A. Merx of Heidelberg, another master in biblical
philology, fully agrees : " Calvin ist der grosste Exeget seiner Zeit . . . der
Schopfer der iichten Exegese" (on Joel, p. 428), and he ascribes to him, besides
the necessary learning, including Hebrew, the sagacity of understanding and
explaining the whole from the parts, and the parts from the whole.

* G. Wohlenberg, a Lutheran divine, begins a notice of the new edition of
Calvin's Commentaries on the New Test, (in Luthardt's "Theol. Lit.-blatt,"
Oct. 9, 1891) with this remark: " Calvin's Cornmentare zum N. T. geho'ren zu
den nie veraltenden Werken. Und so gut wie Bengel's ' Gnomon' immer wieder
gedruckt und gelesen werden wird, so lange es einf gesunde und fromme Schri/ter-
kldrung giebt, so werden auch. Calvin's Commi-nhire me vergessen werden."

526 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

expounded the most important books of the Old Testament,
the Pentateuch, the Psalms, and the Prophets, and all the
books of the New Testament, with the exception of the
Apocalypse, which he wisely left alone. Some of his expo
sitions, as the Commentary on the Minor Prophets, were
published from notes of his free, extempore lectures and
sermons. His last literary work was a Commentary on
Joshua, which he began in great bodily infirmity and finished
shortly before his death and entrance into the promised
land.

It was his delight to expound the Word of God from the
chair and from the pulpit. Hence his theology is biblical
rather than scholastic. The Commentaries on the Psalms
and the Epistles of Paul are regarded as his best. He was
in profound sympathy with David and Paul, and read in
their history his own spiritual biography. He calls the
Psalms (in the Preface) " an anatomy of all the parts of the
soul ; for there is not an emotion of which any one can be
conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror. Or,
rather, the Holy Spirit has here drawn to the life the griefs,
the sorrows, the fears, the doubts, the hopes, the cares, the
perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which
the minds of men are wont to be agitated." He adds that
his own trials and conflicts helped him much to a clearer
understanding of these divine compositions.

He combined in a very rare degree all the essential quali
fications of an exegete — grammatical knowledge, spiritual
insight, acute perception, sound judgment, and practical tact.
He thoroughly sympathized with the spirit of the Bible; he
put himself into the situation of the writers, and reproduced
and adapted their thoughts for the benefit of his age.

Tholuck mentions as the most prominent qualities of
Calvin's commentaries these four: doctrinal impartiality,
exegetical tact, various learning, and deep Christian
piety. Winer praises his " truly wonderful sagacity in per-

§ 111. CALVIN'S COMMENTARIES. 527

ceiving, and perspicuity in expounding, the meaning of the
Apostle." l

1. Let us first look at his philological outfit. Melanch-
thon well says : " The Scripture cannot be understood
theologically unless it be first understood grammatically."2
He had passed through the school of the Renaissance; he
had a rare knowledge of Greek ; he thought in Greek, and
could not help inserting rare Greek words into his letters to
learned friends. He was an invaluable help to Luther in his
translation of the Bible, but his commentaries are dogmatical
rather than grammatical, and very meagre, as compared with
those of Luther and Calvin in depth and force.3

Luther surpassed all other Reformers in originality, fresh
ness, spiritual insight, bold conjectures, and occasional flashes
of genius. His commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians,
which he called " his wife," is a masterpiece of sympathetic
exposition and forceful application of the leading idea of evan
gelical freedom to the question of his age. But Luther was no
exegete in the proper sense of the term. He had no method
and discipline. He condemned allegorizing as a mere " mon
key-game " (AffenspieT)) and yet he often resorted to it in Job,
the Psalms, and the Canticles. He was eminently spiritual,
and yet, as against Zwingli, slavishly literal in his interpre
tation. He seldom sticks to the text, but uses it only as a
starting-point for popular sermons, or polemical excursions
against papists and sectarians. He cared nothing for the
consensus of the fathers. He applied private judgment to
the interpretation with the utmost freedom, and judged the
canonicity and authority of the several books of the Bible

1 " Calvinus miram in pervidenda apostoli mente subtilitatem, in exponenda
prespicuitatem probavit." In the third ed. of his Com. on the Ep. to the
Galatians.

2 " Ignavus in grammatica est ignavus in theologia." Postill. IV. 428.

3 Calvin himself fully acknowledged the exegetical merits of Melanchthon,
Bullinger, and Bucer, in their commentaries on Romans, but modestly hints
at their defects to justify his own commentary, which is far superior. See his
interesting dedication to Grynaeus, written in 1539.

528 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

by a dogmatic and subjective rule — his favorite doctrine of
solifidian justification ; and as he could not find it in James,
he irreverently called his epistle " an epistle of straw." He
anticipated modern criticism, but his criticism proceeded
from faith in Christ and God's Word, and not from scepti
cism. His best work is a translation, and next to it, his little
catechism for children.

Zwingli studied the Greek at Glarus and Einsiedeln that
he might be able " to draw the teaching of Christ from the
fountain." l He learnt Hebrew after he was called to Zurich.
He also studied the fathers, and, like Erasmus, took more to
Jerome than to Augustin. His expositions of Scripture are
clear, easy, and natural, but somewhat superficial. The other
Swiss Reformers and exegetes — CEcolampadius, Grynseus,
Bullinger, Pellican, and Bibliander — had a good philologi
cal preparation. Pellican, a self-taught scholar (d. 1556),
who was called to Zurich by Zwingli in 1525, wrote a little
Hebrew grammar even before Reuchlin,2 and published at
Zurich comments on the whole Bible.3 Bibliander (d. 1564)
was likewise professor of Hebrew in Zurich, and had some
acquaintance with other Semitic languages; he was, how
ever, an Erasmian rather than a Calvinist, and opposed the
doctrine of the absolute decrees.

For the Hebrew Bible these scholars used the editions
of Daniel Bomberg (Venice, 1518-45) ; the Complutensian
Polyglot, which gives, besides the Hebrew text, also the
Septuagint and Vulgate and a Hebrew vocabulary (Alcala,
printed 1514-17 ; published 1520 sqq.) ; also the editions of

1 He wrote in 1523 that, ten years before (when priest at Glarus), " operam
dedi Grcecianis literis, ut ex fontibus doctrinam Christi haurire possem."

2 De Modo legendi et intelligendi Hebrceum, written at Tubingen or Basel in
1501, first printed in the Margarita philosophica, at Strassburg in 1504 (one or
two years before Reuchlin's Rudimenta Linguce Hebr.}t recently discovered
and republished by Nestle, Tubingen, 1877.

3 Commentaria Sibliorum, Zurich, 1532-39, 7 vols. See Diestel, /.c., 272
sq., and Strack in Herzog2 XI. 432 sqq.

§ 111. CALVIN'S COMMENTARIES. 529

Sabastian Minister (Basel, 1536), and of Robert Stephens
(Etienne, Paris, 1539-46). For the Greek Testament they
had the editions of Erasmus (Basel, five ed. 1516-35), the
Complutensian Polyglot (1520), Colineeus (Paris, 1534),
Stephens (Paris and Geneva, 1546-51). A year after Cal
vin's death, Beza began to publish his popular editions of
the Greek Testament, with a Latin version (Geneva, 1565-
1604).

Textual criticism was not yet born, and could not begin
its operations before a collection of the textual material from
manuscripts, ancient versions, and patristic quotations. In
this respect, therefore, all the commentaries of the Reforma
tion period are barren and useless. Literary criticism was
stimulated by the Protestant spirit of inquiry with regard
to the Jewish Apocrypha and some Antilegomena of the
New Testament, but was soon repressed by dogmatism.

Calvin, besides being a master of Latin and French, had
a very good knowledge of the languages of the Bible. He
had learned the Greek from Volmar at Bourges, the Hebrew
from Gryneeus during his sojourn at Basel, and he industri
ously continued the study of both.1 He was at home in
classical antiquity ; his first book was a Commentary on
Seneca, De Clementia, and he refers occasionally to Plato,
Aristotle, Plutarch, Polybius, Cicero, Seneca, Virgil, Horace,
Ovid, Terence, Livy, Pliny, Quintilian, Diogenes Laertius,
Aulus Gellius, etc. He inferred from Paul's quotation of
Epimenides, Tit. 1:12, " that those are superstitious who
never venture to quote anything from profane authors.

1 His knowledge of Hebrew was unjustly depreciated by the Roman Cath
olic Richard Simon. But Dr. Diestel, a most competent judge, ascribes to
Calvin " a very solid knowledge of Hebrew." See above, p. 276, and p. 525.
Tholuck, also, in his essay above quoted, asserts that " every glance at Cal
vin's Commentary on the Old Testament assures us not only that he under
stood Hebrew, but that he had a very thorough knowledge of this language."
He mentions, by way of illustration, a number of difficult Hebrew and Greek
words which Calvin correctly explains. He denies that he was dependent
on Pellican's notes, as Semler had gratuitously suggested.

530 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Since all truth is from God, if anything has been said aptly
and truly even by impious men, it ought not to be rejected,
because it proceeded from God. And since all things are of
God, why is it not lawful to turn to his glory whatever may
be aptly applied to this use ? " On 1 Cor. 8 : 1, he observes :
" Science is no more to be blamed when it puffs up than
a sword when it falls into the hands of a madman." But he
never makes a display of learning, and uses it only as a means
to get at the sense of the Scripture. He wrote for educated
laymen as well as for scholars, and abstained from minute
investigations and criticisms; but he encouraged Beza to
publish his Commentary on the New Testament in which
philological scholarship is more conspicuous.

Calvin was also familiar with the patristic commentators,
and had much more respect for them than Luther. He fully
appreciated the philological knowledge and tact of Jerome,
the spiritual depth of Augustin, and the homiletical wealth
of Chrysostom; but he used them with independent judg
ment and critical discrimination.1

1 He expresses his estimate of the Fathers in the Preface to his Institutes
as follows : " Another calumny is their charging us with opposition to the
fathers; I mean the writers of the earlier and purer ages, as if those writers
were abettors of their impiety ; whereas if the contest were to be terminated
by this authority, the victory in most parts of the controversy, to speak in
the most modest terms, would be on our side. But though the writings of
those fathers contain many wise and excellent things, yet, in some respects,
they have suffered the common fate of mankind ; these very dutiful children
reverence only their errors and mistakes, but their excellencies they either
overlook, or conceal, or corrupt ; so that it may be truly said to be their only
study to collect dross from the midst of gold. Then they overwhelm us with
senseless clamors, as despisers and enemies of the fathers. But we do not
hold them in such contempt, but that if it were consistent with my present
design, I could easily support by their suffrages most of the sentiments that
we now maintain. Yet, while we make use of their writings, we always re
member that ' All things are ours ' to serve us, not to have dominion over us,
and that ' we are Christ's ' alone, and owe him universal obedience. He who
neglects this distinction will have nothing decided in religion, since those holy
men were ignorant of many things, frequently at variance with each other
and sometimes even inconsistent with themselves." In the preface to his
commentary on the Romans he praises the Fathers for their pietas, eruditio,

§ 111. CALVIN'S COMMENTARIES. 531

2. Calvin kept constantly in view the primary and funda
mental aim of the interpreter, namely, to bring to light the
true meaning of the biblical authors according to the laws
of thought and speech.1 He transferred himself into their
mental state and environment so as to become identified with
them, and let them explain what they actually did say, and
not what they might or should have said, according to our
notions or wishes. In this genuine exegetical method he
has admirably succeeded, except in a few cases where his
judgment was biassed by his favorite dogma of a double
predestination, or his antagonism to Rome ; though even there
he is more moderate and fair than his contemporaries, who
indulge in diffuse and irrelevant declamations against popery
and monkery. Thus he correctly refers the " Rock " in
Matt. 16 : 18 to the person of Peter, as the representative
of all believers.2 He stuck to the text. He detested irrele
vant twaddle and diffuseiiess. He was free from pedantry.
He never evades difficulties, but frankly meets and tries to
solve them. He carefully studies the connection. His judg
ment is always clear, strong, and sound. Commentaries are
usually dry, broken, and indifferently written. His exposi
tion is an easy, continuous flow of reproduction and adapta
tion in elegant Erasmian Latinity. He could truly assert
on his death-bed that he never knowingly twisted or misin
terpreted a single passage of the Scriptures ; that he always

and sanctimonia, and adds that their antiquity lent them such authority,
" ut nihil quod ab ipsis profectum sit, contemnere debeamus." Compare with this
judgment Luther's bolder and cruder opinions on the Fathers, quoted in vol.
VI. 534 sqq.

1 In the dedicatory preface to his Com. on Romans he reminds his friend
Grynseus of a conversation they had three years previously, on the best method
of interpretation, when they agreed that the chief virtue of an interpreter
was "perspicua brevitas," and adds : " Et sane quum hoc sit prope unicum illius
officium, mentem scriptoris, quern explicandum sumpsit, patefacere : quantum ab ea
lectores abducit, tantundem a scopo suo aberrat, vel certe a suisjinibus quodammodo
evagatur."

2 Harmon. II. 107.

532 THE REFORMATION IX FRENCH SWITZERLAND. -

aimed at simplicity, and restrained the temptation to display
acuteness and ingenuity.

He made no complete translation of the Bible, but gave
a Latin and a French version of those parts on which he
commented in either or both languages, and he revised the
French version of his cousin, Pierre Robert Olivetan, which
appeared first in 1535, for the editions of 1545 and 1551. *

3. Calvin is the founder of modern grammatico-historical
exegesis. He affirmed and carried out the sound and funda
mental hermeneutical principle that the biblical authors, like
all sensible writers, wished to convey to their readers one
definite thought in words which they could understand.
A passage may have a literal or a figurative sense, but cannot
have two senses at once. The word of God is inexhaustible
and applicable to all times ; but there is a difference between
explanation and application, and application must be consist
ent with explanation.

Calvin departed from the allegorical method of the Middle
Ages, which discovered no less than four senses in the Bible,2
turned it into a nose of wax, and substituted pious imposi
tion for honest exposition. He speaks of " puerile " and
" far-fetched " allegories, and says that he abstains from them
because there is nothing " solid and firm " in them. It is an
almost sacrilegious audacity to twist the Scriptures this way
and that way, to suit our fancy.3 In commenting on the
allegory of Sarah and Hagar, Gal. 4 : 22-26, he censures
Origen for his arbitrary allegorizing, as if the plain historical
e of the Bible were too mean and too poor. " I acknowl
edge," he says, " that Scripture is a most rich and inexhausti-

1 See Reuss, Gesch. des N. T. § 474 (p. 539, 6th ed.). Reuss prepared from
Calvin's French Commentaries a French version for his ed. of the Opera.

2 Expressed in the memorial lines : —

" Litera gesta docet ; quid credas, Allegoria ;
Moralis, quid agas ; quo tendas, Anagogia."

3 Pref. ad Homanos : " Affinis sacrilegio audacia est Scripturas temere hue
illuc versare et quasi in re lusoria lascivire : quod a multis jam olim factitatum est."

§ 111. CALVIN'S COMMENTARIES. 533

ble fountain of all wisdom, but I deny that its fertility con
sists in the various meanings which any man at his pleasure
may put into it. Let us know, then, that the true meaning
of Scripture is the natural and obvious meaning; and let us
embrace and abide by it resolutely. Let us not only neg
lect as doubtful, but boldly set aside as deadly corruptions,
those pretended expositions which lead us away from the
natural meaning." He approvingly quotes Chrysostom, who
says that the word " allegory " in this passage is used in an im
proper sense.1 He was averse to all forced attempts to harmo
nize difficulties. He constructed his Harmony of the Gospels
from the three Synoptists alone, and explained John separately.
4. Calvin emancipated exegesis from the bondage of dog
matism. He was remarkably free from traditional orthodox
prepossessions and prejudices, being convinced that the truths
of Christianity do not depend upon the number of dicta pro-
bantia. He could see no proof of the doctrine of the Trinity
in the plural Eloliim? nor in the three angel visitors of Abra
ham, 18 : 2, nor in the Trisagion, Ps. 6 : 3,3 nor of the divinity
of the Holy Spirit in Ps. 33 : 6.4

1 " Et certe Chrysostomus in vocabulo Allegories fatetur esse catechresin (KCITO-
XPW-^ •' quod verissimum est."

2 Ad. Gen. 1:1 (Opera, XXIII. 15): " Habetur apud Moses DM^K, nomen
pluralis numeri. Unde colligere solent, hie in Deo notari tres personas ; sed quia
parum solida mihi videtur tantce rei probatio, ego in voce non insistam. Quin potius
monendi sunt lectores ut sibi a violentis ejusmodi glossis caveant. Putant illi se
testimonium habere adversus Arianos ad probandam Filii et Spiritus divinitatem,
interea se involvunt in errorem Sabellii." But in the words, " Let us 'make
man," Gen. 1 : 26, he admits, after rejecting the Rabbinical fancies, the inti
mation of a plurality in God : " Christiani apposite plures subesse in Deo personas
ex hoc testimonio contendunt. Neminem extraneurn advocat Deus : hinc colligimus,
intus enm aliquid distinctum invenire : ut certe ceterna eius sapientia et virtus in
ipso resident." (Ib. 25.)

3 On this passage he remarks: " Veteres hoc testimonio usi sunt, quum vcllent
adversus Arianos tres personas in nna Dei essentia probare. Quorum ego sententiam
non improbo ,- sed si mihi res cum hcereticis esset, mallem firmioribus testimoniis uti."

4 Older Lutheran divines (even Walch, Biblioth. theol. IV. 413) charged
him with Judaizing and Socinian misinterpretation of the O. T. proof texts
for the Trinity and the divinity of the Messiah. Aegidius Hunnius, in his
Calvinus Judaizans (Wittenberg, 1593), thought that Calvin ought to have

534 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

5. He prepared the way for a proper historical understand
ing of prophecy. He fully believed in the Messianic prophe
cies, which are the very soul of the faith and hope of Israel;
but he first perceived that they had a primary bearing and
practical application to their own times, and an ulterior fulfil
ment in Christ, thus serving a present as well as a future use.
He thus explained Psalms 2, 8, 16, 22, 40, 45, 68, 110, as typi
cally and indirectly Messianic. On the other hand, he made
excessive use of typology, especially in his Sermons, and saw
not only in David but in every king of Jerusalem a " figure
of Christ." In his explanation of the protevangelium, Gen.
3:15, he correctly understands the "seed of the woman,'*
collectively of the human race, in its perpetual conflict with
Satan, which will culminate ultimately in the victory of
Christ, the head of the race.1 He widens the sense of the
formula "that it might be fulfilled" (tW 77X77/00) Ofi), so as to
express sometimes simply an analogy or correspondence
between an Old Testament and a New Testament event.
The prophecy, Hos. 11 : 1, quoted by Matthew as referring
to the return of the Christ-child from Egypt, must, accord
ingly, "not be restricted to Christ," but is "skilfully adapted
to the present occasion." 2 In like manner, Paul, in Rom.
10 : 6, gives only an embellishment and adaptation of a word
of Moses to the case in hand.3

been burnt for his abominable perversion of the Scriptures. D. Pareus of
Heidelberg defended him against this charge in his Orthodoxus Calvinus.
Modern Lutheran exegesis fully sustains him.

1 Ad Gen. 3: 15 (0/>em, XXIII. 71) : " Generaliter semen interpretor de pos-
teris. Sed quum experientia doceat, multum abesse gain supra diabolum victores
emergant omnes Jilii Adce, ad caput unum venire necesse est, ut reperiamus ad quern
pertineat victoria. Sic Paulus a semine Abraham ad Christum nos deducit. . . .
Quare sensus est (jneo judicio), humanum genus, quod opprimere conatus erat Satan,
fore tandem superius."

2 Harm. I. 80. Tholuck's ed. On ver. 23 in the same chapter, Calvin
says (p. 83) : " Non deducit Matthceus Nazarceum a Nazareth .• quasi sit hcec
propria et certa etymologia, sed tantum est allusio," etc.

3 Comp. his notes on Gen. 3 : 15 ; Isa. 4:2; 6:3; Ps. 33 : 6 ; Matt, 2 : 15;
8:17; 11:11; John 1:51; 2:17; 5:31 sq.; 2 Cor. 12:7; 1 Pet. 3:19;
Heb. 2:6-8; 4:3; 11:21.

§ 111. CALVIN'S COMMENTAKIES. 535

6. He had the profoundest reverence for the Scriptures,
as containing the Word of the living God and as the only
infallible and sufficient rule of faith and duty ; but he was
not swayed by a particular theory of inspiration. It is true,
he never would have approved the unguarded judgments of
Luther on James, Jude, Hebrews, and the Apocalypse ; l but
he had no hesitancy in admitting incidental errors which do
not touch the vitals of faith. He remarks on Matt. 27 : 9 :
" How the name of Jeremiah crept in, I confess I know not,
nor am I seriously troubled about it. That the name of Jere
miah has been put for Zechariah by an error, the fact itself
shows, because there is no such statement in Jeremiah."2
Concerning the discrepancies between the speech of Stephen
in Acts 7 and the account of Genesis, he suggests that
Stephen or Luke drew upon ancient traditions rather than
upon Moses, and made "a mistake in the name of Abraham."3

He was far from the pedantry of the Purists in the seven
teenth century, who asserted the classical purity of the New
Testament Greek, on the ground that the Hoty Spirit could
not be guilty of any solecism or barbarism, or the slightest
violation of grammar; not remembering that the Apostles
and Evangelists carried the heavenly treasure of truth in
earthen vessels, that the power and grace of God might
become more manifest, and that Paul himself confesses his
rudeness "in speech," though not "in knowledge." Calvin
justly remarks, with special reference to Paul, that by a sin
gular providence of God the highest mysteries were com
mitted to us " sub contemptibili verborum humilitate" that
our faith may not rest on the power of human eloquence,

1 See Luther's judgments in vol. VI. 35 sq.

2 Harm. II. 349 (Tholuck's ed.) : " Quomodo Jeremice nomen obrepserit, me
nescire fateor , nee anxie laboro : certe Jeremice nomen errore positum esse pro Zcicha-
ria (13:7), res ipsa ostendit : quia nihil tale apud Jeremiam legitur, vel etiam
quod accedat."

3 Ad Acta 7 : 16 : " In nomine Abrahce erratum esse palam est. . . . Quare
hie locus corrigendus est." According to Gen. 50 : 13, Abraham bought the cave
of Machpelah at Hebron, and Jacob was buried there, and not at Shechem.

536 THE REFORMATION TN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

but solely on the efficacy of the divine Spirit ; and yet he
fully recognized the force and fire, the majesty and weight of
Paul's style, which he compares to flashes of lightning.1

The scholastic Calvinists, like the scholastic Lutherans of
the seventeenth century, departed from the liberal views
of the Reformers, and adopted a mechanical theory which
confounds inspiration with dictation, ignores the human
element in the Bible, and reduces the sacred writers to mere
penmen of the Holy Spirit. This theory is destructive of
scientific exegesis. It found symbolical expression, but only
for a brief period, in the Helvetic Consensus Formula of 1675,
which, in defiance of historical facts, asserts even the inspira
tion of the Masoretic vowel points. But notwithstanding this
restraint, the Calvinistic exegetes adhered more closely to
the natural grammatical and historical sense of the Scriptures
than their Lutheran and Roman Catholic contemporaries.2

7. Calvin accepted the traditional canon of the New Tes
tament, but exercised the freedom of the ante-Nicene Church
concerning the origin of some of the books. He denied the
Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews on account
of the differences of style and mode of teaching (ratio

1 See his admirable comments on 1 Cor. 1 : 17 sqq., and 2 Cor. 11:6, where
he mentions the majestas, altitudo, pondus, and vis of Paul's words, and says :
" Fulmina sunt, non verba. An non dilucidius Spiritus Sancti efficacia apparet in
nuda verborum rusticitate (tit ita loquar^) quam in elegantice et nitoris larva ? "

2 Fr. Turretin, a strict scholastic Calvinist, and one of the authors of the
Helvetic Consensus Formula, opposed the allegorical method and defended
the sound, one-sense principle (in his Inst. TheoL Elencticce, qusest. XIX., vol.
I. 135) : " Nos ita sentimus, Scriptural S. tinicum tantum competere rernm et genu-
inum sensum, sed sensum ilium duplicem posse esse, vel SIMPLICEM, vel COMPO-
SITUM. SIMPLEX et historicus est, qui unius rei declarationem continet,a!>sque ullius
alterius significatione, qni vel prcecepta, vel dogmata, vel historias spectat. Et hie
rursus duplex, vel PROPRIUS et GRAMMATICALIS, vel FIGTTRATUS et TROPICUS.
PROPRIUS qui ex verbis propriis oritur ; TROPICUS qui ex verbisfiguratis. SEN
SUS COMPOSITUS sen mixtus est in oraculis typi rationem habentibus, cujus pars est
in typo, pars in antitypo; quoe, non constituunt duos sensus, sed duas paries unius
ejusdemque sensus intenti a Spiritu Sancto, qui cum litera mysterium respexit, ut in
isto*0raculo, ' Os non confringetis ei,' Exo. 12 : 46, plenus non potest haberi sensus,
nisi cum veritate typi, sen Agni Paschalis, conjungatur veritas Antitypi seu Christi
ex Jo. 19. -3 6."

§ 111. CALVIN'S COMMENTARIES. 537

docendi), but admitted its apostolic spirit and value. He
doubted the genuineness of the Second Epistle of Peter, and
was disposed to ascribe it to a pupil of the Apostle, but he
saw nothing in it which is unworthy of Peter. He prepared
the way for a distinction between authorship and editorship
as to the Pentateuch and the Psalter.

He departed from the traditional view that the Scripture
rests on the authority of the Church. He based it on inter
nal rather than external evidence, on the authority of God
rather than the authority of men. He discusses the subject
in his Institutes,1 and states the case as follows : —

"There has very generally prevailed a most pernicious error that the
Scriptures have only so much weight as is conceded to them by the suffrages
of the Church, as though the eternal and inviolable truth of God depended on
the arbitrary will of men.2 . . . For, as God alone is a sufficient witness of
Himself in His own Word, so also the Word will never gain credit in the
hearts of men till it be confirmed by the internal testimony of the Spirit.
It is necessary, therefore, that the same Spirit, who spake by the mouths of
the prophets, should penetrate into our hearts, to convince us that they faith
fully delivered the oracles which were divinely intrusted to them. . . . Let
it be considered, then, as an undeniable truth, that they who have been in
wardly taught by the Spirit, feel an entire acquiescence in the Scripture, and
that it is self -authenticated, carrying with it its own evidence, and ought not
to be made the subject of demonstrations and arguments from reason ; but it
obtains the credit which it deserves with us by the testimony of the Spirit.
For though it commands our reverence by its internal majesty, it never seri
ously affects us till it is confirmed by the Spirit in our hearts. Therefore,
being illuminated by him, we now believe the divine original of the Scripture,
not from our own judgment or that of others, but we esteem the certainty
that we have received it from God's own mouth, by the ministry of men, to
be superior to that of any human judgment, and equal to that of an intuitive
perception of God himself in it. ... Without this certainty, better and
stronger than any human judgment, in vain will the authority of the Scripture
be either defended by arguments, or established by the authority of the
Church, or confirmed by any other support, since, unless the foundation be
laid, it remains in perpetual suspense."3

1 Bk. I. ch. VII. and VIII.

2 Luther said substantially the same thing in his controversy with Eck :
"The Church cannot give any more authority or power to the Scripture than
it has of itself. A Council cannot make that to be Scripture which is not
Scripture by its own nature."

3 Selected from Inst. I. VII. §§ 1, 4, 5, and VIII. § 1.

538 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

This doctrine of the intrinsic merit and self-evidencing
character of the Scripture, to all who are enlightened by the
Holy Spirit, passed into the Gallican, Belgic, Second Helvetic,
Westminster, and other Reformed Confessions. They pre
sent a fuller statement of the objective or formal principle
of Protestantism, — namely, the absolute supremacy of tlie
Word of God as the infallible rule of faith and practice, —
than the Lutheran symbols which give prominence to the
subjective or material principle of justification by faith.1

At the same time, the ecclesiastical tradition is of great
value, as a witness to the human authorship and canonicity
of the several books, and is more fully recognized by modern
biblical scholarship, in its conflict with destructive criticism,
than it was in the days of controversy with Romanism. The
internal testimony of the Holy Spirit and the external testi
mony of the Church join in establishing the divine authority
of the Scriptures.

§ 112. The Calvinistic System.

Comp. § 78, pp. 327-343, and the exposition of the Augustinian System and
the Pelagian controversy in vol. III. §§ 146-158, pp. 783-856. — DORNER :
Gesckichte der protestantischen Theologie, pp. 374-404. — LOOPS : Dogmenge-
schichte, 2d ed., pp. 390-401.

Calvin is still a living force in theology as much as Angus-
tin and Thomas Aquinas. No dogmatician can ignore his
Institutes any more than an exegete can ignore his Commen
taries. Calvinism is embedded in several confessions of the
Reformed Church, and dominates, with more or less rigor,
the spirit of a large section of Protestant Christendom, espe
cially in Great Britain and North America. Calvinism is
not the name of a Church, but it is the name of a theological
school in the Reformed Churches. Luther is the only one
among the Reformers whose name was given to the Church
which he founded. The Reformed Churches are indepen-

1 Comp. vol. VI. 36 sqq.

§ 112. THE CALVINISTIC SYSTEM. 589

dent of personal authority, but all the more bound to the
teaching of the Bible.

Calvinism is usually identified with Augustinianism, as to
anthropology and soteriology, in opposition to Pelagianism
and Semi-Pelagianism. Augustin and Calvin were intensely
religious, controlled by a sense of absolute dependence on
God, and wholly absorbed in the contemplation of his
majesty and glory. To them God was everything : man a
mere shadow. Blessed are the elect upon whom God bestows
all his amazing mercy ; but woe to the reprobate from whom
he withholds it. They lay equal emphasis on the doctrines
of sin and grace, the impotence of man and the omnipotence
of God, the sinfulness of sin and the sovereignty of regener
ating grace. In Christology they made no progress. Their
theology is Pauline rather than Johannean. They passed
through the same conflict with sin, and achieved the same
victory, by the power of divine grace, as the great Apostle of
the Gentiles. Their spiritual experience is reflected in their
theology. But Calvin left us no such thrilling record of
his experience as Augustin in his Confessions. He barely
alludes to his conversion, in the preface to his Commentary
on the Psalms and in his Answer to Sadolet.

The profound sympathy of Calvin with Augustin is shown
in the interesting fact that he quotes him far more frequently
than all the Greek and Latin fathers combined, and quotes
him nearly always with full approbation.1

But in some respects Augustin and Calvin were widely
different. Augustin wandered for nine years in the laby-

1 According to the Index of the List of Authors quoted in Calvin's Insti
tutes, which is appended to Beveridge's translation, Edinburgh, 1856, vol. III.
626-663, the number of his quotations from the principal fathers is as follows :
228 from Augustin; 39 from Pope Gregory I.; 27 from Chrysostom; 23 from
Bernard; 18 from Ambrose; 14 from Cyprian; 12 from Jerome; 11 from
Hilary; 7 from Tertullian. Of classical authors there are, in the Institutes,
7 quotations from Plato ; 5 from Aristotle ; 0 from Cicero ; 3 from Seneca ; 2
from Plutarch, etc. The Index theologicus in Opera, XXII. 136-143, gives 7 col
umns of quotations from Augustin. This does not include the commentaries.

540 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

rinth of the Manichsean heresy, and found at last rest and
peace in the orthodox Catholic Church of his day, which was
far better than any philosophical school or heretical sect,
though not much purer than in the sixteenth century. He
became the chief architect of scholastic and mystic theology,
which ruled in the Middle Ages, and he still carries more
weight in the Roman communion than any of the ancient
fathers. Calvin was brought up in the Roman Catholic
Church, but fled from its prevailing corruptions to the citadel
of the Holy Scripture, and became the most formidable
enemy of the papacy. If Augustin had lived in the sixteenth
century, he might, perhaps, have gone half way with the
Reformers ; but, judging from his high estimate of visible
church unity and his conduct towards the schismatic Dona-
tists, it is more probable that he would have become the
leader of an evangelical school of Catholicism within the
Roman Church.

The difference between the two great teachers may be
briefly stated in two sentences which are antagonistic on the
surface, though reconcilable at bottom. Augustin says :
"I would not believe the gospel if it were not for the
Church." l Calvin teaches (in substance, though not in these
words): "I would not believe the Church if it were not for
the gospel." The reconciliation must be found in the higher
principle : I believe in Christ, and therefore I believe in the
gospel and the Church, which jointly bear witness of him.

As to the doctrines of the fall, of total depravity, -the
slavery of the human will, the sovereignty of saving grace,
the bishop of Hippo and the pastor of Geneva are essentially
agreed ; the former has the merit of priority and originality ;

1 Contra Ep. Manichcei quam vocani Fundamcnti, c. 5: "Ego evangelio non
crederem nisi me moveret ecchsice anctoritas." This famous anti-Manichaean
passage is often quoted by Roman Catholics against Protestants. Calvin
discusses it at length in his Inst. (Bk. I. ch. VII. § 3), and tries to deprive it
of its anti-Protestant force, l>ut he admits it in the sense that "the authority
of the Church is an introduction to prepare us for the faith of the gospel."

§ 112. THE CALYINISTIC SYSTEM. 541

the latter is clearer, stronger, more logical and rigorous, and
far superior as an exegete.

Their views are chiefly derived from the Epistle to the
Romans as they understood it, and may be summed up in
the following propositions: God has from eternity foreor
dained all things that should come to pass, with a view to
the manifestation of his glory ; he created man pure and holy,
and with freedom of choice ; Adam was tried, disobeyed,
lost his freedom, and became a slave of sin; the whole
human race fell with him, and is justly condemned in Adam
to everlasting death ; but God in his sovereign mercy elects
a part of this mass of corruption to everlasting life, without
any regard to moral merit, converts the elect by irresistible
grace, justifies, sanctifies, and perfects them, and thus dis
plays in them the riches of his grace ; while in his inscrutable,
yet just and adorable counsel he leaves the rest of mankind
in their inherited state of condemnation, and reveals in the
everlasting punishment of the wicked the glory of his awful
justice.

The Lutheran system is a compromise between Augustin-
ianism and Semi-Pelagianism. Luther himself was fully
agreed with Augustin on total depravity and predestination,
and stated the doctrine of the slavery of the human will even
more forcibly and paradoxically than Augustin or Calvin.1
But the Lutheran Church followed him only half way. The
Formula of Concord (1577) adopted his doctrine of total
depravity in the strongest possible terms, but disclaimed the
doctrine of reprobation; it represents the natural man as
spiritually dead like " a stone " or " a block," and teaches a

1 De Servo Arbitrio, against Erasmus (1525). He never retracted this
book, but declared it many years afterwards to be one of his best. He was
followed by Amsdorf, Flacius, Wigand, and Brenz. See Church History, vol.
VI. 430 sqq. ; Kostlin, Luther's Theologie, I. 773 sqq. ; Luthardt, Dogmatik,
p. 120 (6th ed.), and his Lehre vomfreien Willen; Harnack, Dogmengeschichte,
III. 714 sq. ; and Loofs, Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmengeschichte, 2d ed.
Halle, 1890, pp. 322-324, and 317-350.

542 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

particular and unconditional election, but also an universal
vocation.1

The Augustinian system was unknown in the ante-Nicene
age, and was never accepted in the Eastern Church. This
is a strong historical argument against it. Augustin himself
developed it only during the Pelagian controversy ; while in
his earlier writings he taught the freedom of the human Avill
against the fatalism of the Manichreans.2 It triumphed in
the Latin Church over Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism,
which were mildly condemned by the Synod of Orange (529).
But his doctrine of an absolute predestination, which is only
a legitimate inference from his anthropological premises, was
indirectly condemned by the Catholic Church in the Gott-
schalk controversy (853), and in the Jansenist controversy
(1653), although the name and authority of the great doctor
and saint were not touched.

The Calvinistic system was adopted by a large portion of
the Reformed Church, and has still able and earnest advo
cates. Calvin himself is now better understood, and more
highly respected by scholars (French and German) than ever
before ; but his predestinarian system has been effectively
opposed by the Arminians, the Quakers, and the Methodists,
and is undergoing a serious revision in the Presbyterian and
Calvinistic Churches of Europe and America.

The Augustinian, Lutheran, and Calvinistic systems rest
on the same anthropology, and must stand or fall together
with the doctrine of the universal damnation of the whole
human race on the sole ground of Adam's sin, including

1 See Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I. 313 sqq. ; and the works on the
Formula Concordice.

2 Calvin was well aware of Augustin's change on this point. "Origen,
Ambrose, and Jerome," he says, "believed that God dispenses his grace
among men, according to his foreknowledge of the good use which every
individual will make of it. Augustin also was once of the same sentiment,
but when he had made a greater proficiency in scriptural knowledge, he not
only retracted, but powerfully confuted it." Then he quotes in proof a num
ber of passages. Inst. III. ch. XXII. § 8.

§ 112. THE CALVINISTIC SYSTEM. 543

infants and entire nations and generations which never heard
of Adam, and which cannot possibly have been in him as self-
conscious and responsible beings.1 They have alike to answer
the question how such a doctrine is reconcilable with the jus
tice and mercy of God. They are alike dualistic and particu
laristic. They are constructed on the ruins of the fallen
race, instead of the rock of the redeemed race ; they destroy
the foundation of moral responsibility by teaching the
slavery of the human will ; they turn the sovereignty of
God into an arbitrary power, and his justice into partiality ;
they confine the saving grace of God to a particular class.
Within that favorite and holy circle all is as bright as sun
shine, but outside of it all is as dark as midnight. These
systems have served, and still serve, a great purpose, and
satisfy the practical wants of serious Christians who are not
troubled with theological and philosophical problems; but
they can never satisfy the vast majority of Christendom.

We are, indeed, born into a world of sin and death, and we
cannot have too deep a sense of the guilt of sin, especially
our own ; and, as members of the human family, we should
feel the overwhelming weight of the sin and guilt of the whole
race, as our Saviour did when he died on the cross. But we
are also born into an economy of righteousness and life, and
we cannot have too high a sense of God's saving grace which
passeth knowledge. As soon as we enter into the world we
are met with the invitation, " Suffer little children to come
unto me." The redemption of the race is as much an accom
plished fact as the fall of the race, and it alone can answer
the question, why God permitted or caused the fall. Where

1 Augustin based his view of a quasi pre-existence of all men in the loins
of Adam on a false exegesis of Rom. 5 : 12, tv <£, by following the Vulgate
rendering in quo (z'n whom), and referring it back to Adam; while it has the
meaning because (tirl rovri^ 5lTi = 8i6Ti), or on condition that (ttri TOI/T^ oxrre, ea
ratione ut, inasmuch as). It is neuter, not masculine. On the exegesis of that
famous passage, and the doctrinal discussions on it, see my extensive notes
in Lange's Comm. on Romans, pp. 172 sqq.

544 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

sin has abounded, grace has abounded not less, but much
more.

Calvinism has the advantage of logical compactness, con
sistency, and completeness. Admitting its premises, it is
difficult to escape its conclusions. A system can only be
overthrown by a system. It requires a theological genius
of the order of Augustin and Calvin, who shall rise above
the antagonism of divine sovereignty and human freedom,
and shall lead us to a system built upon the rock of the
historic Christ, and inspired from beginning to end with
the love of God to all mankind.

NOTES ON AMERICAN CALVINISM.

1. Calvinism was imported and naturalized in America, by the Puritans,
since 1620, and dominated the theology and church life of New England
during the colonial period. It found its ablest defender in Jonathan Edwards,
— the great theological metaphysician and revival preacher, — who maybe
called the American Calvin. It still controls the orthodox Congregational
and Baptist churches. But it has provoked Unitarianism in New England
(as it did in England), and has undergone various modifications. It is now
gradually giving way to a more liberal and catholic type of Calvinism. The
new Congregational Creed of 1883 is thoroughly evangelical, but avoids all
the sharp angles of Calvinism.

2. The Presbyterian Calvinism is best represented by the theological sys
tems of Charles Hodge, W. G. T. Shedd, and Henry B. Smith. The first is
the mildest, the second the severest, the third the broadest, champion of
modern American Calvinism ; they alike illustrate the compatibility of logical
Calvinism with a sweet and lovely Christian temper, but they dissent from
Calvin's views by their infralapsarianism, their belief in the salvation of all
infants dying in infancy, and of the large number of the saved.

Henry B. Smith, under the influence of modern German theology, took a
step in advance, and marks the transition from old Calvinism to Christological
divinity, but died before he could elaborate it. " The central idea," he says,
in his posthumous System of Christian Theology (New York, p. 341, 4th ed.,
1890), " to which all the parts of theology are to be referred, and by which the
system is to be made a system, or to be constructed, is what we have termed
the Christological or Mediatorial idea, viz., that God was in Christ reconcil
ing the world unto himself. This idea is central, not in the sense that all
the other parts of theology are logically deduced from it, but rather that they
centre in it. The idea is that of an Incarnation in order to Redemption. This
is the central idea of Christianity, as distinguished, or distinguishable, from
all other religions, and from all forms of philosophy; and by this, and this
alone, are we able to construct the whole system of the Christian faith on its

§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 545

proper grounds. This idea is the proper centre of unity to the whole Chris
tian system, as the soul is the centre of unity to the body, as the North Pole
is to all the magnetic needles. It is so really the centre of unity that when
we analyze and grasp and apply it, we find that the whole of Christian theol
ogy is in it." To this remarkable passage should be added a note which
Dr. George L. Prentiss, his most intimate friend, found among the last papers
of Dr. Smith, which may be called his theological will and testament. " What
Reformed theology has got to do is to christologize predestination and decrees,
regeneration and sanctification, the doctrine of the Church, and the whole of
eschatology."

3. The movement for the revision of the Westminster Confession of Faith
has seized, by an irresistible force within the last few years, the Presbyterian
Churches of England, Scotland, and North America, and is inspired by the
cardinal truth of God's love to all mankind (John 3: 16), and the consequent
duty of the Church to preach the gospel to every creature, in obedience to
Christ's command (Mark 16 : 15 ; Matt. 28 : 19, 20). The United Presbyterian
Church (1879) and the Free Church (1891) of Scotland express their dissent
from the Westminster Standards in an explanatory statement, setting forth
their belief in the general love of God, in the moral responsibility of man,
and in religious liberty, — all of which are irreconcilable with a strict con
struction of those standards. The English Presbyterian Church has adopted
a new creed, together with a declaratory statement (1890). The General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States ordered, in 1889,
a revision of the Westminster Confession, which is now going on ; and, at the
same time, the preparation of a new, short, and popular creed that will give
expression to the living faith of the present Church, and serve, not as a sign
of division and promoter of sectarian strife, but as a bond of harmony with
other evangelical churches, and help rather than hinder the ultimate reunion
of Christendom. See Schaff, Creed Revision in the Presbyterian Churches, 1890.

§ 113. Predestination.

1. Inst. Bk. III. chs. XXI.-XXIV. Articuli de Prcedestinatione, first published

from an autograph of Calvin by the Strassburg editors, in Opera, IX. 713.
The Consensus Genevensis (1552), Opera, VIII. 249-366. Calvin's polem
ical writings against Pighius (1543), vol. VI. 224-404; Bolsec (1551),
vol. VIII. 85-140 ; and Castellio (1557-58), vol. IX. 253-318. He treats the
subject also in several of his sermons, e.g. on First and Second Timothy.

2. ALEX. SCHWEIZER: Die Protestantischen Centraldogmen (Zurich, 1854),

vol. I. 150-179. — STAHELIN, I. 271 sqq. — DORNER: Geschichte der protest.
TheoL, 386-395. — PHILIP SCHAFF: Creeds of Christendom, I. 451-455.

LUTHER AND CALVIN.

The dogma of a double predestination is the corner-stone
of the Calvinistic system, and demands special consideration.

546 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Calvin made the eternal election of God, Luther made the
temporal justification by faith, the article of the standing or
falling Church, and the source of strength and peace in the
battle of life. They agreed in teaching salvation by free
grace, and personal assurance of salvation by a living faith
in Christ and his gospel. But the former went back to the
ultimate root in a pre-mundane unchangeable decree of God ;
the latter looked at the practical effect of saving grace upon
the individual conscience. Both gave undue prominence to
their favorite dogma, in opposition to Romanism, which
weakened the power of divine grace, magnified human merit,
and denied the personal certainty of salvation. They wished
to destroy all basis for human pride and boasting, to pluck
up Phariseeism by the root, and to lay a firm foundation for
humility, gratitude, and comfort. This was a great progress
over the mediaeval soteriology.

But there is a higher position, which modern evangelical
theology has reached. The predestinarian scheme of Calvin
and the solifidian scheme of Luther must give way or be sub
ordinated to the Chris tocentric scheme. We must go back
to Peter's confession, which has only one article, but it is the
most important article, and the oldest in Christendom. The
central place in the Christian system belongs to the divine-
human person and work of Christ: this is the immovable
rock of the Church, against which the gates of Hades shall
never prevail, and on which the creeds of Christendom will
have to unite (Matt. 16 : 16-18 ; comp. 1 Cor. 2:2; 3 : 11 ;
Rom. 4 : 25 ; 1 John 4 : 2, 3). The Apostles' Creed and the
Nicene Creed are Christocentric and Trinitarian.

THE REFORMERS ALL PREDESTINARIANS.

All the Reformers of the sixteenth century, following the
lead of Augustin and of the Apostle Paul, — as they under
stood him, — adopted, under a controlling sense of human
depravity and saving grace, and in antagonism to self-

§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 547

righteous legalism, the doctrine of a double predestination
which decides the eternal destiny of all men.1 Nor does it
seem possible, logically, to evade this conclusion if we
admit the two premises of Roman Catholic and Evangelical
orthodoxy — namely, the wholesale condemnation of all men
in Adam, and the limitation of saving grace to the present
life. All orthodox Confessions reject Universalism, and
teach that some men are saved, and some are lost, and that
there is no possibility of salvation beyond the grave. The
predestinarians maintain that this double result is the out
come of a double decree, that history must harmonize with
the divine will and cannot defeat it. They reason from the
effect to the cause, from the end to the beginning.

Yet there were some characteristic differences in the views
of the leading Reformers on this subject. Luther, like
Augustin, started from total moral inability or the servum
arbitrium; Zwingli, from the idea of an all-ruling provi dentia ;
Calvin, from the eternal decretum absolutum.

The Augustinian and Lutheran predestinarianism is mod
erated by the churchly and sacramental principle of baptismal
regeneration. The Calvinistic predestinarianism confines the
sacramental efficacy to the elect, and turns the baptism of
the non-elect into an empty form ; but, on the other hand,
it opens a door for an extension of electing grace beyond the
limits of the visible Church. Zwingli's position was pecul
iar : on the one hand, he went so far in his supralapsarianism
as to make God the sinless author of sin (as the magistrate
in inflicting capital punishment, or the soldier in the battle,

1 The essential agreement of the Reformers on the doctrine of free-will
and predestination has been proven by scholars of different schools, as Jul.
Muller (Lutheri doctrina de prcedestinatione et libero arbitrio, and in his Dogma-
tische Abhandlungen, pp. 169-179), Hundeshagen (Confticte des Zwinglianismus,
Lutherthums, und Calvinismus in der Berniscken LandesTcirche von 2532-2558),
Baur (Der Gegensatz des Katholicismus und Protestantismus, and in his Dog-
me»<jeschichte\ Schweizer (Centraldogmen), Gieseler, Hagenbach, Dorner,
Luthardt, Loofs, and others.

548 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

are innocently guilty of murder) ; but, on the other hand,
he undermined the very foundation of the Augustinian
system — namely, the wholesale condemnation of the race for
the single transgression of one ; he admitted hereditary sin,
but denied hereditary guilt ; and he included all infants and
pious heathen in the kingdom of heaven. Such a view was
then universally abhorred, as dangerous and heretical.1

Melanchthon, on further study and reflection, retreated
in the Semi-Pelagian direction, and prepared the way for
Arminianism, which arose, independently, in the heart of
Calvinism at the beginning of the seventeenth century. He
abandoned his earlier view, which he characterized as Stoic
fatalism, and proposed the Synergistic scheme, which is a
compromise between Augustinianism and Semi-Pelagianism,
and makes the human will co-operate with preceding divine
grace, but disowns human merit.2

The Formula of Concord (1577) rejected both Calvinism
and Synergism, yet taught, by a logical inconsistency, total
disability and unconditional election, as well as universal
vocation.

CALVIN'S THEORY.

Calvin elaborated the doctrine of predestination with
greater care and precision than his predecessors, and avoided
their " paradoxes," as he called some extravagant and un
guarded expressions of Luther and Zwingli. On the other

1 Calvin expressed to Bullinger, in a confidential letter, January, 1552, his
dissatisfaction with the paradoxical expressions of Zwingli's tract De Provi-
dentia. " Zwinglii libellus," he writes, "ut f ami liar iter inter nos loquamur, tarn
duris paradoxis rejertus est, ut longissime ab ea qiiam adhibui moderations distet."
Bullinger, however, never contradicted the liberal sentiments of his teacher
and friend, and believed in extraordinary modes of salvation, "sine externo
minister io, quo et quando velit (.Dews) ; et quod ejus potentice est." Second Helv.
Conf. I. 7.

2 For a fuller exposition of Melanchthon's Synergism see Herrlinger's
monograph; Frank, Theologie der Concordienformel ; Dorner, Geschichte der
protest. Theologie, pp. 361-374, and his System der christl. Grlaubenslehre, II.
706 sq. and 716 sq. ; Schweizer, Central dolmen, I. 380 sqq. ; Schaff, Creeds of
Christendom, I. 262 sq. ; Loofs, Dogmengeschichte, pp. 403 sq. (2d ed.).

§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 549

hand, he laid greater emphasis on the dogma itself, and
assigned it a higher position in his theological system. He
was, by his Stoic temper and as an admirer of Seneca, pre
disposed to predestinarianism, and found it in the teaching
of Paul, his favorite apostle. But his chief interest in the
doctrine was religious rather than metaphysical. He found
in it the strongest support for his faith. He combined with
it the certainty of salvation, which is the privilege and
comfort of every believer. In this important feature he
differed from Angus tin, who taught the Catholic view of the
subjective uncertainty of salvation.1 Calvin made the cer
tainty, Augustin the uncertainty, a stimulus to zeal and
holiness.

Calvin was fully aware of the unpopularity of the doctrine.
" Many," he says, " consider nothing more unreasonable than
that some of the common mass of mankind should be fore
ordained to salvation, and others to destruction. . . . When
the human mind hears these things, its petulance breaks all
restraint, and it discovers a serious and violent agitation as
if alarmed by the sound of a martial trumpet." But he
thought it impossible to "come to a clear conviction of our
salvation, till we are acquainted with God's eternal election,
which illustrates his grace by this comparison, that he adopts
not all promiscuously to the hope of salvation, but gives to
some what he refuses to others." It is, therefore, not from
the general love of God to all mankind, but from his particu
lar favor to the elect that they, and they alone, are to derive
their assurance of salvation and their only solid comfort.
The reason of this preference can only be found in the
inscrutable will of God, which is the supreme law of the
universe. As to others, we must charitably assume that they
are among the elect ; for there is no certain sign of reproba
tion except perseverance in impenitence until death.

Predestination, according to Calvin, is the eternal and

1 De Dono Persev., ch. XXXIII.

550 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

unchangeable decree of God by which he foreordained, for
his own glory and the display of his attributes of mercy and
justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their
own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punish
ment of their sin, to eternal damnation. " Predestination,"
he says, " we call the eternal decree of God, by which he
has determined in himself the destiny of every man. For
they are not all created in the same condition, but eternal
life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for
others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the
other of these ends, we say, he is predestinated either to life
or to death." :

This applies not only to individuals, but to whole nations.
God has chosen the people of Israel as his own inheritance,
and rejected the heathen ; he has loved Jacob with his pos
terity, and hated Esau with his posterity. " The counsel
of God, as far as concerns the elect, is founded on his gratui
tous mercy, totally irrespective of human merit; but to
those whom he devotes to condemnation the gate of life is
closed by a just and irreprehensible, though incomprehensi
ble judgment."2 God's will is the supreme rule of justice,3
so that " what he wills must be considered just for the very
reason that he wills it. When you ask, therefore, why the
Lord did so, the answer must be, Because he would. But
if you go further and ask why he so determined, you are in
search of something higher and greater than the will of God,
which can never be found. Let human temerity, therefore,
desist from seeking that which is not, lest it should fail of
finding that which is. This will be a sufficient restraint to

1 " Prcedestinationem vocamus ceternum Dei decretum, quo apud se constitution
habuit, quid de unoquoque homine fieri vellet, Non enirn pari conditione creantur
omnes ; sed aliis vita ceterna, afiis damnatio (eterna pra'ordinatur. Itaque, pront in
alterutrum Jlnem quisque conditus est, ita vel ad vitam, vel ad jnortem prcedestina-
tum dicimus" Inst. III. ch. XXI. § 5 (Opera, vol. II. pp. 682, 683).

2 Ibid. III. ch. XXI. § 7.

3 " Summa justitice regula est Dei voluntas"

§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 551

any one disposed to reason with reverence concerning the
secrets of his God." 1 Calvin infers from the passage, " God
hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will,
he hardeneth" (Rom. 9: 13), that Paul attributes both equally
" to the mere Avill of God. If, therefore, we can assign no
reason why God grants mercy to his people but because such
is his pleasure, neither shall we find any other cause but his
will for the reprobation of others. For when God is said to
harden or show mercy to whom he pleases, men are taught
by this declaration to seek no cause behind his will." 2

Predestination, therefore, implies a twofold decree — a
decree of election unto holiness and salvation, and a decree
of reprobation unto death on account of sin and guilt. Calvin
deems them inseparable. "Many indeed," he says, "as if
they wished to avert odium from God, admit election in such
a way as to deny that any one is reprobated. But this is
puerile and absurd, because election itself could not exist
without being opposed to reprobation. . . . Whom God
passes by, he reprobates (Quos Deus prceterit, reprobat), and
from no other cause than his determination to exclude them
from the inheritance which he predestines for his children." 3

1 Inst. III. ch. XXII. § 1.

2 Ibid. III. ch. XXII. 11. Calvin's definition of divine justice is contrary
to the general conception of human justice, which must be a reflection of
divine justice.

3 Hid. III. ch. XXIII. § 1. The scholastic Calvinists distinguished in
reprobation a negative element, namely, prceteritio or indebitce gratice negatio,
and a positive element of predamnation, pnedamnatio or debitce poencv destinatio.
See the definitions of Wolleb, Keckermann, Heidegger, etc., in Heppe's Dog-
matik der evang. reform. Kirche (1861), p. 132. The Westminster Confession
(ch. III. 7) uses the term "passing by," which is equivalent to preterition or
omission ; the Gallican Conf. (ch. XII.) and the Belgic Conf. (ch. XVI.) use
the milder term laisser, relinquere, to leave, namely, in the natural state of con
demnation and ruin. Shedd (Si/st. Theol. I. 433) says: "Reprobation com
prises preterition and condemnation or damnation/' and he makes these
distinctions : 1) Preterition is a sovereign act ; condemnation is a judicial
act. 2) The reason of preterition is unknown ; the reason of damnation is
sin. 3) In preterition God's action is permissive (inaction rather than action) ;
in condemnation, God's action is efficient and positive. His proof text is
Luke 17 : 34 : " The one shall be taken, and the other shall be left."

552 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

God bestows upon the reprobate all the common mercies
of daily life as freely as upon the elect, but he withholds
from them his saving mercy. The gospel also is offered to
them, but it will only increase their responsibility and en
hance their damnation, like the preaching of Christ to the
unbelieving Jews (Isa. 6 : 9, 10 ; Matt. 13 : 13-15). But how
shall we reconcile this with the sincerity of such an offer ?

INFRALAPSARIAXISM AND SUPRALAPSARIANISM.

Within the Calvinistic system there arose two schools in
Holland during the Arminian controversy, the Infralapsa-
rians (also called Sublapsarians) and the Supralapsarians,
who held different views on the order of the divine decrees
and their relation to the fall (lapsus). The Infralapsarians
adjust, as it were, the eternal counsel of God to the temporal
fall of man, and assume that God decreed, first to create man
in holiness ; then to permit him to fall by the self-determina
tion of his free will ; next, to save a definite number out of
the guilty mass ; and last, to leave the rest in sin, and to
ordain them to eternal punishment.1 The Supralapsarians
reverse the order, so that the decree of election and reproba
tion precedes the decree of creation ; they make uncreated
and unfallen man (that is, a non-ens') the object of God's
double decree. The Infralapsarians, moreover, distinguish
between an efficient or active and a permissive or passive
decree of God, and exclude the fall of Adam from the effi
cient decree ; in other words, they maintain that God is not
in any sense the author of the fall, but that he simply

1 This is the order given in the Formula Consensus Helvetica, canon IV. (in
Niemeyer, p. 731) : " Ita Deus gloriam suam illustrare constituit, ut decreverit,
primo quidem hominem integrum CREARE, turn ejusdem lapsum PERMITTEES, ac
demum ex lapsis (juorundam misereri, adeoque eosdem ELIGERE, alios vero in
corrupta massa RELINQTJERE, ceternoque tandem exitio devovere." This does not
go beyond the limits of Augustinianism. Van Oosterzee errs when he says
(Christian Dogmatics, vol. I. p. 452} that the Form. Cons. Helv. asserts the
supralapsarian view

§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 553

allowed it to come to pass for higher ends. He did not
cause it, but neither did he prevent it. The Supralapsarians,
more logically, include the fall itself in the efficient and
positive decree ; yet they deny as fully as the Infralapsarians,
though less logically, that God is the author of sin. The
Infralapsarians attribute to Adam before the fall the gift of
free choice, which was lost by the fall ; some Supralapsarians
deny it. The doctrine of probation (except in the one case
of Adam) has no place in the Calvinistic system, and is
essentially Arminian. It is entirely inapplicable to infants
dying in infancy. The difference between the two schools
is practically worthless, and only exposes the folly of man's
daring to search the secrets of God's eternal counsel. They
proceed on a pure metaphysical abstraction, for in the eternal
God there is no succession of time, no before nor after.1

Calvin was claimed by both schools. He must be classed
rather with the Supralapsarians, like Beza, Gomarus, Twysse,
and Emmons. He saw the inconsistency of exempting from
the divine foreordination the most important event in history,
which involved the whole race in ruin. " It is not absurd,"
he says, " to assert that God not only foresaw, but also fore
ordained the fall of Adam and the ruin of his posterity."
He expressly rejects the distinction between permission (per-
missio) and volition (voluntas) in God, who cannot permit
what he does not will. "What reason," he asks, "shall we
assign for God's permitting the destruction of the impious,
but because it is his will ? It is not probable that man pro
cured his own destruction by the mere permission, and with-

1 On the distinction, see Beza, Summa totius Christianismi (Opera, I. 170) ;
Limborch, Theol Christ. IV. 2; Heppe, Dogmatik der evang. reform. Kirche,
pp. 108 sqq., and the curious order of Beza there printed, as if the order of
the divine counsels were a mathematical problem. The infralapsarian view
is milder and passed into most of the Calvinistic Confessions. The West
minster Confession is a compromise between the two schools, and puts the
fall of Adam under a permissive decree (ch. V. 4), and yet not under a bare
permission, but including it in the purpose of God, who ordered it for his own
glory (VI. 1).

554 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

out any appointment of God. As though God had not
determined what he would choose to be the condition of the
chief of his creatures. I shall not hesitate, therefore, to con
fess with Augustin, ' that the will of God is the necessity of
things, and what he has willed will necessarily come to pass ; as
those things are really about to happen which he has foreseen.' "J
But while his inexorable logic pointed to this abyss, his
moral and religious sense shrunk from the last logical infer
ence of making God the author of sin ; for this would be
blasphemous, and involve the absurdity that God abhors and
justly punishes what he himself decreed. He attributes to
Adam the freedom of choice, by which he might have obtained
eternal life, but he wilfully disobeyed.2 Hence his signifi-

1 Inst. III. XXIII. 7 and 8. The passage quoted from Augustin is De Gen.
ad lit., 1. VI. c. 15. In Inst. III. ch. XXIV. 12, Calvin uses strong supralap-
sarian language : " Those whom God has created to a life of shame and death
((juos in n'tte contumeUam et mortis exitium creavit'), that they might be instru
ments of his wrath, and examples of his severity, he causes to reach their
appointed end ; sometimes depriving them of the opportunity of hearing the
Word, sometimes by the preaching of it increasing their blindness and stu
pidity." Then he illustrates this by examples, especially that of Pharaoh,
and the aim of the parables of Christ (Matt. 13:11; John 12:39,40). In
the Consensus Genevensis (Niemeyer, p. 251), he says that the fall was ordained
by the admirable counsel of God (admirabili Dei consilio fuisse ordinatum}.
Beza understood Calvin correctly.

2 He gives his view of the primitive state in Inst. I. ch. XV. § 8 : " God
has furnished the soul of man with a mind capable of discerning good from
evil, and just from unjust; and of discovering, by the light of reason, what
ought to be pursued or avoided : whence the philosophers called this directing
faculty rb f)yefj.oviK6v, the principal or governing part. To this he hath an
nexed the will, on which depends the choice. The primitive condition of man
was ennobled with those eminent faculties; he possessed reason, understand
ing, prudence, and judgment, not only for the government of his life on earth,
but to enable him to ascend even to God and eternal felicity. To these were
added choice, to direct the appetites, and regulate all the organic motions, so
that the will was entirely conformed to the government of reason. In this
integrity man was endued with free will, by which, if he had chosen, he might
have obtained eternal life. For here it would be unreasonable to introduce
the question respecting the secret predestination of God, because we are not
discussing what might possibly have happened or not, but what was the real
nature of man. Adam, therefore, could have stood if he would, since he fell
merely by his own will ; but because his will was flexible to either side, and he

§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 555

cant phrase : " Man falls, God's providence so ordaining it ;
yet he falls by his own guilt." 1 Here we have supralapsa-
rian logic combined with ethical logic. He adds, however,
that we do not know the reason why Providence so ordained
it, and that it is better for us to contemplate the guilt of man
than to search after the hidden predestination of God.
" There is," he says, "a learned ignorance of things which
it is neither permitted nor lawful to know, and avidity of
knowledge is a species of madness."

Here is, notwithstanding this wholesome caution, the cru
cial point where the rigorous logic of Calvin and Augustin
breaks down, or where the moral logic triumphs over intel
lectual logic. To admit that God is the author of sin would
destroy his holiness, and overthrow the foundation of morality
and religion. This would not be Calvinism, but fatalism
and pantheism. The most rigorous predestinarian is driven
to the alternative of choosing between logic and morality.
Augustin and Calvin could not hesitate for a moment.
Again and again, Calvin calls it blasphemy to make God
the author of sin, and he abhorred sin as much as any man
ever did. It is an established fact that the severest Calvinists
have always been the strictest moralists.2

was not endued with constancy to persevere, therefore he so easily fell. Yet
his choice of good and evil was free ; and not only so, but his mind and will
were possessed of consummate rectitude, and all his organic parts were
rightly disposed to obedience, till destroying himself he corrupted all his
excellencies."

1 "Lapsus est enim primus homo, quia Dominus ita expedire censuerat ; cur
censuerit, nos latet. Certum tarnen est non aliter censuisse, nisi quia videbat, nominis
sui gloriam inde merito illustrari. Unde mentionem glorice Dei audis, illic justitiam
cogita. Justum enim esse oportet quod laudem meretur. CADIT IGITUR HOMO,
DEI PROVIDENTIA sic ORDINAIRE, SED suo vixio CADIT. . . . Propria ergo
malitia, quam acceperat a Domino puram natnram corrupit ; sua ruina totam pos-
teritatem in exitium secum attraxit." Inst. III. ch. XXIII. § 8 (vol. II. p. 705).
In his reply to Castellio (Opera, IX. 294) he says: " Prcevidit Deus lapsum
Adce: penes ipsum facultas erat prohibendi : noluit. Cur noluerit, alia non potest
afferri ratio nisi quia aUo tendebat ejus voluntas."

2 Comp. here the powerful sections against the abuse of the doctrine of
election, in III. ch. XXIII. 12 sqq.

THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

INFANT SALVATION AND DAMNATION.

Are infants dying in infancy included in the decree of
reprobation ? This is another crucial point in the Augustinian
system, and the rock on which it splits.

St. Augustin expressly assigns all unbaptized children
dying in infancy to eternal damnation, because of original
sin inherited from Adam's transgression. It is true, he
mitigates their punishment and reduces it to a negative
state of privation of bliss, as distinct from positive suffering.1
This does credit to his heart, but does not relieve the matter;
for " damnatio" though " levissima" and "mitissima" is still
damnatio.

The scholastic divines made a distinction between pcena
damni, which involves no active suffering, and pcena sensus,
and assigned to infants dying unbaptized the former but not
the latter. They invented the fiction of a special department
for infants in the future world, namely, the Limbus Infantum,
on the border region of hell at some distance from fire and
brimstone. Dante describes their condition as one of "sorrow
without torment." 2 Roman divines usually describe their
condition as a deprivation of the vision of God. The Roman
Church maintains the necessity of baptism for salvation, but
admits the baptism of blood (martyrdom) and the baptism
of intention, as equivalent to actual baptism. These excep
tions, however, are not applicable to infants, unless the
vicarious desire of Christian parents be accepted as sufficient.

Calvin offers an escape from the horrible dogma of infant
damnation by denying the necessity of water baptism for
salvation, and by making salvation dependent on sovereign

1 See the passages in vol. III. 835 sq. Augustin was called durus infantum
pater. But his view was only the logical inference from the doctrine of the
necessity of baptism for salvation, which was taught long before him on the
ground of John 3 : 8 and Mark 16 : 16. Even Pelagius excluded unbaptized
infants from the kingdom of heaven, though not from eternal life. He
assigned them to a middle state of half-blessedness.

2 Inferno, IV. 28, duol senza martiri, i.e. mental, not physical pain.

§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 557

election alone, which may work regeneration without baptism,
as in the case of the Old Testament saints and the thief on
the cross. We are made children of God by faith and not
by baptism, which only recognizes the fact. Calvin makes
sure the salvation of all elect children, whether baptized or
not. This is a great gain. In order to extend election beyond
the limits of the visible means of grace, he departed from
the patristic and scholastic interpretation of John 3 : 5, that
" water " means the sacrament of baptism, as a necessary
condition of entrance into the kingdom of God. He thinks
that a reference to Christian baptism before it was instituted
would have been untimely and unintelligible to Nicodemus.
Pie, therefore, connects water and Spirit into one idea of
purification and regeneration by the Spirit.1

Whatever be the meaning of " water," Christ cannot here
refer to infants, nor to such adults as are beyond the reach
of the baptismal ordinance. He said of children, as a class,
without any reference to baptism or circumcision : " Of such
is the kingdom of God." A word of unspeakable comfort to
bereaved parents. And to make it still stronger, he said:
" It is not the will of your Father, who is in heaven, that one
of these little ones should perish" (Matt. 18:14). These
declarations of our Saviour, which must decide the whole
question, seem to justify the inference that all children who
die before having committed any actual transgression, are
included in the decree of election. They are born into an
economy of salvation, and their early death may be consid
ered as a sign of gracious election.

But Calvin did not go so far. On the contrary, he inti-

1 "Aqua nihil aliud est quam interior Spiritus Sancti purgatio et vegetatio"
Com. in loco. He takes /ecu epexegetically and lays the stress on Trvtv/na,
which alone is mentioned in the following verses, 6 and 8. Similarly Grotius :
" Spiritus aqumis, i.e. aquce instar emundans." But the natural reference is to
baptismal water, as the symbol of purification and remission of sins. Comp.
John 1 : 33; Tit. 3:5; Eph. 5 : 26. The different interpretations are discussed
at length in Schaff's ed. of Lange's Comm. on John, pp. 126 sqq.

558 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

mates very clearly that there are reprobate or non-elect
children as well as reprobate adults. He says that hk some
infants," having been previously regenerated by the Holy
Spirit, " are certainly saved," but he nowhere says that all
infants are saved.1 In his comments on Rom. 5 : 17, he con
fines salvation to the infants of pious (elect) parents, but
leaves the fate of the rest more than doubtful.2 Arguing
with Catholic advocates of free-will, who yet admitted the
damnation of unbaptized infants, he asks them to explain in
any other way but by the mysterious will of God, the terrible
fact " that the fall of Adam, independent of any remedy,
should involve so many nations with their infant children in
eternal death. Their tongues so loquacious on every other
point must here be struck dumb."3

1 Inst. bk. IV. ch. XVI. 17 : "Infantes, qui servandi sint — ITT CERTE EX EA
JETA.TE OMNINO ALiQUi SERVANTUR — antea a Domino regenerari mini me obscurum
est." This was the doctrine of the Westminster divines, and is expressed in
the Westminster Confession, ch. X. 3 : " Elect infants, dying in infancy, are
regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and
where, and how he pleaseth." Although this passage admits of a liberal
construction, yet the natural sense, as interpreted by the private opinions of
the framers of the Confession, makes it almost certain that the existence
and damnation of non-elect infants is implied. The Presbyterian Revision
ists, therefore, wishing to avoid this logical implication, propose to strike out
elect, or to substitute all for it (as the Cumberland Presbyterians have done
in their Confession). The change will be acted upon by the General Assem
bly in May, 1892.

2 " De piorum liberis loquor, ad quos promissio gratice dirigitur ; nain alii a
communi sorte nequaquam eximuntur."

8 " Tot gentes una cum liberis eorum infantibus." Inst. III. ch. XXIII. § 7.
To this should be added the challenge to Castellio : " Put forth now thy viru
lence against God, who hurls innocent babes even from their mothers' breast
into eternal death." Calvin here argues e concessis. The passage has been
often distorted. We give it in Latin with the connection (Opera, IX. 289) :
" Negas Deo licere nisi propter f acinus damnare quenquam mortalium. Tolluntur
e vita innumeri adhuc infantes. Exsere nunc tuam virulentiam contra Deum, qui
innoxios foetus a matrum uberibus avulsos in ceternam mortem prcecipitat. Hanc
blasphemiam, nbi palarn detecta est, quisquis non detestabitur, mini pro sua libidine
maledicat." In the same way he challenges Castellio (fol. 289), to explain
the admitted fact, that God allows innocent infants to be devoured by tigers
or lions or bears or wolves (" qui fit ut Dens parvulos infantes a tigribus vel ursis
vel leonibus vel lupis laniari vorarique sineat"). The attempt of Dr. Shields of

§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 559

And in this connection he adds the significant words : " It
is an awful (horrible) decree, I confess, but no one can deny
that God foreknew the future, final fate of man before he
created him, and that he did foreknow it, because it was
appointed by his own decree." 1

Our best feelings, which God himself has planted in our
hearts, instinctively revolt against the thought that a God
of infinite love and justice should create millions of immortal
beings in his own image — probably more than half of the
human race — in order to hurry them from the womb to the
tomb, and from the tomb to everlasting doom! And this
not for any actual sin of their own, but simply for the trans
gression of Adam of which they never heard, and which God
himself not only permitted, but somehow foreordained.
This, if true, would indeed be a "decretum horribile."

Calvin, by using this expression, virtually condemned his
own doctrine. The expression so often repeated against him,
does great credit to his head and heart, and this has not
been sufficiently appreciated in the estimate of his character.
He ventured thus to utter his humane sentiments far more
strongly than St. Augustin dared to do. If he, nevertheless,
accepted this horrible decree, he sacrificed his reason and
heart to the rigid laws of logic and to the letter of the
Scripture as he understood it. We must honor him for his
obedience, but as he claimed no infallibility, as an interpreter,
we must be allowed to challenge his interpretation.

Zwingli, as already remarked, was the first and the only

Princeton to prove that Calvin believed in the salvation of all infants, is an
entire failure ("The Presbyt. and Ref. Review" for October, 1890).

1 " Decretum quidem horribile fateor." This famous expression is often
ignorantly applied to the whole doctrine of predestination, while Calvin only
uses it of the decree of reprobation. The decree of election is glorious arid
most comforting. There is no need, therefore, of moderating the term horri-
bile, which means horrible, terrible, dreadful. In French he calls it " ce de'cret
qui nous doit espouvanter," a decree which should terrify us. Hase (Kirchen*
geschichte, III. I. 196) says : " Calvin ist ein dogmatischer Dante : dieselbe grauen*
voile Lust, die Majestdt Gottes aitch in der Hb'lle anzuerkennen und zu preisen%
diese grauenvolle Macht, welche fuhlende Wesen gesr.haffen hat zu ewiger Qual,"

560 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Reformer who entertained and dared to express the charita
ble hope and belief in universal infant salvation by the atone
ment of Christ, who died for all. The Anabaptists held the
same view, but they were persecuted as heretics by Protes
tants and Catholics alike, and were condemned in the ninth
article of the Augsburg Confession.1 The Second Scotch
Confession of 1590 was the first and the only Protestant
Confession of the Reformation period which uttered a testi
mony of abhorrence and detestation of the cruel popish
doctrine of infant damnation.2

But gradually the doctrine of universal infant salvation
gained ground among Arminians, Quakers, Baptists, Wesley-
ans, Presbyterians, and is now adopted by almost all Prot
estant divines, especially by Calvinists, who are not hampered
by the theory of baptismal regeneration.3

Zwingli, as we have previously shown, was equally in
advance of his age in regard to the salvation of pious
heathens, who die in a state of readiness for the reception
of the gospel; and this view has likewise penetrated the
modern Protestant consciousness.4

1 "They condemn the Anabaptists, who disapprove the baptism of chil
dren, and affirm that children are saved without baptism." The edition of 1540
adds after " baptism " " et extra ecclesiam Christi," which must refer to heathen
infants. The German text omits the clause and condemns the Anabaptists
simply for rejecting infant baptism. This shows that Melanchthon was in
doubt on the subject of infant damnation.

2 " Abhor r emus et detestamur . . . crudele judicium contra infantes sine bap-
tismo morientes."

8 Among English Calvinists, who teach universal infant salvation, are
Doddridge, Thomas Scott, John Newton, Toplady, Robert S. Candlish ;
among American Calvinists, Drs. Charles Hodge, A. A. Hodge, and B. B.
Warfield, of Princeton, and Drs. H. B. Smith, G. L. Prentiss, and Shedd, of
Union Seminary, New York. Comp. on this subject Schaff, Creeds of Christen
dom, I. 378, 381, 794, 898; Dr. Prentiss, who brings out the theological bear
ings, in the "Presbyterian Review" for 1883; Benjamin B. Warfield, The
Development of the Doctrine of Infant Salvation, New York (Christ. Lit. Co.),
1891, pp. 61; also Chas. P. Krauth (Lutheran), Infant Baptism and Infant
Salvation, Philadelphia (Luthejan Book Store), 1874, pp. 83.

4 See above, pp. 95 sqq.

§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 561

DEFENCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION.

Calvin defended the doctrine of predestination in his
Institutes, and his polemical writings against Pighius, Bolsee,
and Castellio, with consummate skill against all objections,
and may be said to have exhausted the subject on his side
of the question. His arguments were chiefly drawn from the
Scriptures, especially the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the
Romans; but he unduly stretched passages which refer to
the historical destiny of individuals and nations in this world,
into declarations of their eternal fate in the other world;
and he undervalued the proper force of opposite passages
(such as Ezek. 33:11; 18:23, 32; John 1:29; 3:16;
1 John 2 : 2 ; 4 : 14 ; 1 Tim. 2 : 4 ; 2 Pet. 3 : 9) by a distinc
tion between the secret and revealed will of God (voluntas
arcani and voluntas beneplaciti), which carries an intolerable
dualism and contradiction into the divine will.

He closes the whole discussion with this sentence : "Now
while many arguments are advanced on both sides, let our
conclusion be to stand astonished with Paul at so great
a mystery ; and amidst the clamor of petulant tongues let us
not be ashamed to exclaim with him, 4 O man, who art thou
that repliest against God?' For, as Augustin justly con
tends, it is acting a most perverse part to set up the measure
of human justice as the standard by which to measure the
justice of God."

Very true ; but how can we judge of God's justice at all
without our own sense of justice, which comes from God?
And how can that be justice in God which is injustice in
man, and which God himself condemns as injustice ? A fun
damental element in justice is impartiality and equity.

PRACTICAL EFFECT.

The motive and aim of this doctrine was not speculative
but practical. It served as a bulwark of free grace, an anti
dote to Pelagianism and human pride, a stimulus to humility

562 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

and gratitude, a source of comfort and peace in trial and
despondency. The charge of favoring license and carnal
security was always indignantly repelled as a slander by the
Pauline "God forbid!" and refuted in practice. He who
believes in Christ as his Lord and Saviour may have a rea
sonable assurance of being among the elect, and this faith
will constrain him to follow Christ and to persevere to the
end lest he be cast away. Those who believe in the perse
verance of saints are likely to practice it. Present unbelief
is no sure sign of reprobation as long as the way is open for
repentance and conversion.

Calvin sets the absolute sovereignty of God and the infalli
bility of the Bible over against the pretended sovereignty
and infallibility of the pope. Fearing God, he was fearless
of man. The sense of God's sovereignty fortified his follow
ers against the tyranny of temporal sovereigns, and made
them champions and promoters of civil and political liberty
in France, Holland, England, and Scotland.

CONFESSIONAL APPROVAL.

The doctrine of predestination received the official sanc
tion of the pastors of Geneva, who signed the Consensus
Genevensis prepared by Calvin (1552). l It was incorporated,
in its milder, infralapsarian form, in the French Confession
(1559), the Belgic Confession (1561), and the Scotch Con
fession (1560). It was more logically formulated in the
Lambeth Articles (1595), the Irish Articles (1615), the
Canons of Dort (1619), the Westminster Confession and
Larger Catechism (1647), and the Helvetic Consensus For
mula (1675). On the other hand, the First Helvetic Con
fession (1536), the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), the Second

1 The Consensus Genevensis was occasioned by the controversy with
Pighius and Bolsec, but received no authority outside of Geneva. The attempt
to enlist Zurich, Bern, and Basel in favor of this dogma created disturb
ance and opposition. See Schaff, Creeds, etc., 1. 474 sqq.

§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 563

Helvetic Confession (1566), and the Anglican Articles (1571,
Art. XVII.) indorse merely the positive part of the free elec
tion of believers, and are wisely silent concerning the decree
of reprobation and preterition; leaving this to theological
science and private opinion.1 It is noteworthy that Calvin
himself omitted the doctrine of predestination in his own
catechism. Some minor Reformed Confessions, as that of
Brandenburg, expressly declare that God sincerely wishes
the salvation of all men, and is not the author of sin and
damnation.

NOTES.

AUTHORITATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE CALVINISTIC DOC
TRINE OF A DOUBLE PREDESTINATION.

I. CALVIN'S ARTICULI DE PREDESTINATIONS.

Calvin gave a condensed statement of his system in the following arti
cles, which were first published by the Strassburg editors, in 1870, from his
autograph in the University library of Geneva : —

[Ex autographo Calvini Bibl. Genev., Cod. 145, fol 100.~]

" Ante creatum primum hominem statuerat Deus ceterno consilio quid de toto
genere humano fieri vellet.

" Hoc arcano Dei consilio factum est ut Adam ab integro natures, suce statu
deficeret ac sua defectione traheret omnes suos posteros in reatum ceternce mortis.

" Ab hoc eodem decreto pendet discrimen inter electos et reprobos : quia olios
sibi adoptavit in salutem, alios ceterno exitio deslinavit.

" Tametsi justce Dei vindictce vasa sunt reprobi, rursum electi vasa misericor-
dice, causa tamen discriminis non alia in Deo qucerenda est quam mera eius voluntas,
quo? summa est justitice regula.

" Tametsi electi fide percipiunt adoptionis gratiam, non tamen pendet electio
a fide, sed tempore et ordine prior est.

1 The Second Helvetic Confession (chs. VIII. and IX.) uses the term
reprobate (a5o«i/tos, reprobus), but says nothing of a decree of reprobation.
Reprobate is descriptive of moral character, and means not approved, unfit, Rom.
1:28; 1 Cor. 9:27; 2 Cor. 13:5-7; 2 Tim. 3:8; Tit. 1:16. The plural
reprobates is an inaccurate rendering of the A. V. in 2 Cor. 13 : 6, 7, and 2 Tim.
3 : 8, and suggests the idea of a class of persons. The R. V. correctly has
reprobate, since the Greek word is an adjective, not a noun.

564 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

" Sicut initium et perseverantia Jidei a gratuita Dei electione fluit , ita non alii
vere illuminantur in fidem, nee alii spiritu regeneration's donantur, nisi quos Deus
elegit : reprobos vero vel in sua ccecitate manere necesse est, vel excidere a parte
jidei, si qua in illis fuerit.

" Tametsi in Christo eligimur, or dine tamen illud prius est ut nos Dominus in
suis censeat, quam ut faciat Christi membra.

" Tametsi Dei voluntas summa et priina est rerum omnium causa, et Deus dia-
bolum et impios omnes suo arbitrio subiectos habet, Deus tamen neque peccati causa
vocari potest, neque mali autor, neque ulli culpai obnoxius est.

11 Tametsi Deus peccato vere infensus est et damnat quidquid est iniustitios, in
hominibus, quia illi displicet, non tamen nuda eius permissione tantum, sed nutu
quoque et arcano decreto gubernantur omnia liominum facta.

" Tametsi diabolus et reprobi Dei ministri sunt et organa, et arcana eius judicia
exsequuntur, Deus tamen incomprehensibili modo sic in illis et per illos operatur ut
nihil ex eorum vitio labis contrahat, quia illorum malitia iuste recteque utitur in
bonumjinem, licet modus sa>pe nobis sit absconditus.

" Inscite vel calumniose faciunt qui Deumjieridicunt autorem peccati, si omnia
eo volente et ordinante Jiant : quia inter manifestam hominum pravitatem et arcana
Dei indicia non distinguunt."

II. THE LAMBETH ARTICLES.

In full agreement with Calvin are the LAMBETH ARTICLES, 1595. They
were intended to be an obligatory appendix to the Thirty-nine Articles which,
in Art. XVII., present only the positive side of the doctrine of predestination,
and ignore reprobation. They were prepared by Dr. Whitaker, Professor of
Divinity in Cambridge, and approved by Dr. Whitgift, Archbishop of Canter
bury, Dr. Hutton, Archbishop of York, and a number of prelates convened
at Lambeth Palace, London; also by Hooker (with a slight modification; see
Hooker's Works, ed. by Keble, II. 752 sq.). But they were not sanctioned
by Queen Elizabeth, who was displeased that a Lambeth Synod was called
without her authority, nor by James I,, and gradually lost their power during
the Arminian reaction under the Stuarts. They are as follows : —

"I. God from eternity hath predestinated certain men unto life; certain
men he hath reprobated.

"2. The moving or efficient cause of predestination unto life is not the
foresight of faith, or of perseverance, or of good works, or of anything that
is in the person predestinated, but only the good will and pleasure of God.

" 3. There is predetermined a certain number of the predestinate, which
can neither be augmented nor diminished.

"4. Those who are not predestinated to salvation shall be necessarily
damned for their sins.

" 5. A true, living, and justifying faith, and the Spirit of God justifying
[sanctifying] is not extinguished, falleth not away ; it vanisheth not away in
the elect, either finally or totally.

'"6. A man truly faithful, that is, such a one who is endued with a justify
ing faith, is certain, with the full assurance of faith, of the remission of hig
sins and of his everlasting salvation by Christ.

§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 565

" 7. Saving grace is not given, is not granted, is not communicated to all
men, by which they may be saved if they will.

"8. No man can come unto Christ unless it shall be given unto him, and
unless the Father shall draw him ; and all men are not drawn by the Father
that they may come to the Son.

" 9. It is not in the will or power of every one to be saved."

The Lambeth Articles were accepted by the Convocation at Dublin,
1615, and engrafted on the IRISH ARTICLES OF RELIGION, which were proba
bly composed by the learned Archbishop Ussher (at that time Professor of
Divinity in Trinity College, Dublin), and form the connecting link between
the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Westminster Confession. Some of the
strongest statements of the Irish Articles passed literally (without any
acknowledgment) into the Westminster Confession. The Irish Articles are
printed in Schaff's Creeds of Christendom, III. 526-544.

III. THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION.
CHAP. III. Of God's Eternal Decree.

The WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH, prepared by the Westminster
Assembly in 1647, adopted by the Long Parliament, by the Kirk of Scotland,
and the Presbyterian Churches of America, gives the clearest and strongest
symbolic statement of this doctrine. It assigns to it more space than to the
holy Trinity, or the Person of Christ, or the atonement.

" 1. God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his
own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass ; yet so
as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will
of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken
away, but rather established.

" 2. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all
supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw
it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.

"3. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men
and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained
to everlasting death.

"4. These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are
particularly and unchangeably designed ; and their number is so certain and
definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished.

"5. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the
foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable
purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in
Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without
any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or
any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him there
unto ; and all to the praise of his glorious grace.

"6. As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the
eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means there-

566 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

unto. Wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed
by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in
due season ; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power through
faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually
called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.

" 7. The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearch
able counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as
he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass
by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of
his glorious justice.

" 8. The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be han
dled with special prudence and care, that men attending the will of God
revealed in his Word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the cer
tainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election. So
shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God;
and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely
obey the gospel."

IV. METHODISM AND CALVINISM.

The severest condemnation of the Westminster Calvinism came from JOHN
WESLEY, the most apostolic man that the Anglo-Saxon race has produced.
He adopted the Arminian creed and made it a converting agency ; he mag
nified the free grace of God, like the Calvinists, but extended it to all men.
In a sermon on Free Grace, preached at Bristol (Sermons, vol. I. 482 sqq.), he
charges the doctrine of predestination with " making vain all preaching, and
tending to destroy holiness, the comfort of religion and zeal for good works,
yea, the whole Christian revelation by involving it in fatal contradictions."
He goes so far as to call it " a doctrine full of blasphemy," because " it repre
sents our blessed Lord as a hypocrite, a deceiver of the people, a man void
of common sincerity, as mocking his helpless creatures by offering what he
never intends to give, by saying one thing and meaning another." It destroys
"all the attributes of God, his justice, mercy, and truth, yea, it represents
the most holy God as worse than the devil, as both more false, more cruel,
and more unjust." This is as hard and unjust as anything that Pighius,
Bolsec, Castellio, and Servetus said against Calvin. And yet Wesley co
operated for some time with George Whitefield, the great Calvinistic revival
preacher, and delivered his funeral sermon in Tottenham-Court-Road, Nov.
18, 1770, on the text, Num. 23: 10, in which he spoke in the highest terms
of Whitefield's personal piety and great usefulness (Sermons, I. 470-480).
"Have we read or heard," he asked, "of any person since the apostles, who
testified the gospel of the grace of God through so widely extended a space,
through so large a part of the habitable world ? Have we read or heard
of any person, who called so many thousands, so many myriads of sinners
to repentance ? Above all, have we read or heard of any, who has been a
blessed instrument in his hand of bringing so many sinners from ' darkness
to light, and from the power of Satan unto God?'" — This is a striking
illustration how widely great and good men may differ in theology, and yet
how nearly they may agree in religion.

§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 567

Charles Wesley fully sided with the Arminianism of his brother John,
and abused his poetic gift by writing poor doggerel against Calvinism.1 He
had a bitter controversy on the subject with Toplady, who was a devout
Calvinist. But their theological controversy is dead and buried, while their
devotional hymns still live, and Calvinists and Methodists heartily join in
singing Wesley's " Jesus, Lover of my Soul," and Toplady's " Rock of Ages,
cleft for me."

V. MODERN CALVINISM.

Modern Calvinism retains the doctrine of an all-ruling providence and
saving grace, but denies reprobation and preterition, or leaves them to the
sphere of metaphysical theology. It lays also great stress on the moral
responsibility of the human will, and on the duty of offering the gospel
sincerely to every creature, in accordance with the modern missionary spirit.
This, at least, is the prevailing and growing tendency among Presbyterian
Churches in Europe and America, as appears from the recent agitation
on the revision of the Westminster Confession. The new creed of the Pres
byterian Church of England, which was adopted in 1890, avoids all the objec
tionable features of old Calvinism, and substitutes for the eight sections of
the third chapter of the Westminster Confession the following two articles,
which contain all that is necessary in a public confession : —

ART. IV. Of Providence.

" We believe that God the Creator upholds all things by the word of his
power, preserving and providing for all his creatures, according to the laws
of their being; and that he, through the presence and energy of his Spirit
in nature and history, disposes and governs all events for his own high
design ; yet is he not in any wise the author or approver of sin, neither are
the freedom and responsibility of man taken away, nor have any bounds
been set to the sovereign liberty of him who worketh when and where and
how he pleaseth."

ART. XII. Of Election and Regeneration.

" We humbly own and believe that God the Father, before the foundation
of the world, was pleased of his sovereign grace to choose unto himself in
Christ a people, whom he gave to the Son, and to whom the Holy Spirit
imparts spiritual life by a secret and wonderful operation of his power, using
as his ordinary means, where years of understanding have been reached, tne
truths of his Word in ways agreeable to the nature of man; go that, being
born from above, they are the children of God, created in Christ Jesua
good works."

1 Thie ie a specimen : —

11 O Horrible Decree,

Worthy of whence it came!
Forgive their hellish blasphemy.
Who charge it on the Lamb! "

568 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

§ 114. Calvinism examined.

We cannot dismiss this important subject without examin
ing the Calvinistic system of predestination in the light of
Christian experience, of reason, and the teaching of the
Bible.

Calvinism, as we have seen, starts from a double decree
of absolute predestination, which antedates creation, and is
the divine program of human history. This program in
cludes the successive stages of the creation of man, an uni
versal fall and condemnation of the race, a partial redemption
and salvation, and a partial reprobation and perdition : all
for the glory of God and the display of his attributes of
mercy and justice. History is only the execution of the
original design. There can be no failure. The beginning
and the end, God's immutable plan and the issue of the
world's history, must correspond.

We should remember at the outset that we have to deal
here with nothing less than a solution of the world-problem,
and should approach it with reverence and an humble sense
of the limitation of our mental capacities. We stand, as it
were, before a mountain whose top is lost in the clouds.
Many who dared to climb to the summit have lost their vision
in the blinding snow-drifts. Dante, the deepest thinker
among poets, deems the mystery of predestination too far
removed from mortals who cannot see " the first cause in its
wholeness," and too deep even for the comprehension of the
saints in Paradise, who enjoy the beatific vision, yet udo
not know all the elect," and are content u to will whatso
ever God wills." J Calvin himself confesses that " the pre-

i Paradiso, XX. 130-138 :-

" O predestinazion, quanto rimota
E la radice tua da quegli aspetti
Che la prima cagion non veggion tota I

" E rot, mortali, tenetevi stretti

A giudicar; cht noi, che Dio vedcmo,
Non conosciamo ancor tutti gli eletti :

§ 114. CALVINISM EXAMINED. 5ti9

destination of God is a labyrinth, from which the mind of
man can by no means extricate itself." 1

The only way out of the labyrinth is the Ariadne thread
of the love of God in Christ, and this is a still greater, but
more blessed mystery, which we can adore rather than
comprehend.

THE FACTS OF EXPERIENCE.

We find everywhere in this world the traces of a revealed
God and of a hidden God; revealed enough to strengthen
our faith, concealed enough to try our faith.

We are surrounded by mysteries. In the realm of nature
we see the contrasts of light and darkness, day and night,
heat and cold, summer and winter, life and death, blooming
valleys and barren deserts, singing birds and poisonous snakes,
useful animals and ravenous beasts, the struggle for exist
ence and the survival of the fittest. Turning to human life,
we find that one man is born to prosperity, the other to
misery; one a king, the other a beggar; one strong and
healthy, the other a helpless cripple ; one a genius, the other
an idiot ; one inclined to virtue, another to vice ; one the
son of a saint, the other of a criminal ; one in the darkness
of heathenism, another in the light of Christianity. The
best men as well as the worst are exposed to fatal accidents,
and whole nations with their innocent offspring are ravaged
and decimated by Avar, pestilence, and famine.

Who can account for all these and a thousand other differ
ences and perplexing problems ? They are beyond the con
trol of man's will, and must be traced to the inscrutable will
of God, whose ways are past finding out.

" Ed enne dolce cosifatto scemo,

Perche il ben nostro in questo ben s'afflna,
Che quel che vuole Dio, e not volemo."

1 Com. on Rom. 9 : 14 : " Est prcedestinatio Dei vere labyrinthus, undc homi-
nis ingenium nullo tnodo se exphcare queat."

570 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Here, then, is predestination, and, apparently, a double
predestination to good or evil, to happiness or misery.

Sin and death are universal facts which no sane man can
deny. They constitute the problem of problems. And the
only practical solution of the problem is the fact of redemp
tion. " Where sin has abounded, grace did abound more
exceedingly ; that as sin reigned in death, even so might
grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, through
Jesus Christ our Lord " (Rom. 5 : 20, 21).

If redemption were as universal in its operation as sin, the
solution would be most satisfactory and most glorious. But
redemption is only partially revealed in this world, and the
great question remains : What will become of the immense
majority of human beings who live and die without God and
without hope in this world? Is this terrible fact to be traced
to the eternal counsel of God, or to the free agency of man ?
Here is the point where Augustinianism and Calvinism take
issue with Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, Synergism, and
Arminianism.

The Calvinistic system involves a positive truth : the elec
tion to eternal life by free grace, and the negative inference :
the reprobation to eternal death by arbitrary justice. The
former is the strength, the latter is the weakness of the
system. The former is practically accepted by all true
believers ; the latter always has been, and always will be,
repelled by the great majority of Christians.

The doctrine of a gracious election is as clearly taught in
the New Testament as any other doctrine. Consult such
passages as Matt. 25 : 34 ; John 6 : 37, 44, 65 ; 10 : 28 ; 15 :
16; 17:12; 18:9; Acts 13 : 48 ; Rom. 8:28-39; Gal. 1:4;
Eph. 1:4-11; 2:8-10; 1 Thess. 1:4; 2 Thess. 2:13, 14;
2 Tim. 1 : 9 ; 1 Pet. 1 : 2. The doctrine is confirmed by
experience. Christians trace all their temporal and spiritual
blessings, their life, health, and strength, their regeneration
and conversion, every good thought and deed to the unde-

§ 114. CALVINISM EXAMINED. 571

served mercy of God, and hope to be saved solely by the
merits of Christ, "by grace through faith," not by works of
their own. The more they advance in spiritual life, the
more grateful they feel to God, and the less inclined to claim
any merit. The greatest saints are also the humblest.
Their theology reflects the spirit and attitude of prayer,
which rests on the conviction that God is the free giver of
every good and perfect gift, and that, without God, we are
nothing. Before the throne of grace all Christians may be
called Augustinians and Calvinists.

It is the great merit of Calvin to have brought out this
doctrine of salvation by free grace more forcibly and clearly
than any divine since the days of Augustin. It has been the
effective theme of the great Calvinistic preachers and writers
in Europe and America to this day. Howe, Owen, Baxter,
Bunyan, South, Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Robert Hall,
Chalmers, Spurgeon, were Calvinists in their creed, though
belonging to different denominations, — Congregational, Pres
byterian, Episcopal, Baptist, — and had no superiors in pulpit
power and influence. Spurgeon was the most popular and
effective preacher of the nineteenth century, who addressed
from week to week five thousand hearers in his Tabernacle,
and millions of readers through his printed sermons in many
tongues. Nor should we forget that some of the most
devout Roman Catholics were Augustinians or Jansenists.

On the other hand, no man is saved mechanically or by
force, but through faith, freely, by accepting the gift of God.
This implies the contrary power of rejecting the gift. To
accept is no merit, to reject is ingratitude and guilt. All
Calvinistic preachers appeal to man's responsibility. They
pray as if everything depended on God ; and yet they preach
and work as if everything depended on man. And the Church
is directed to send the gospel to every creature. We pray for
the salvation of all men, but not for the loss of a single
human being. Christ interceded even for his murderers on
the cross.

Here, then, is a practical difficulty. The decree of repro
bation cannot be made an object of prayer or preaching, and
this is an argument against it. Experience confirms election,
but repudiates reprobation.

THE LOGICAL ARGUMENT.

The logical argument for reprobation is that there can be
no positive without a negative ; no election of some without
a reprobation of others. This is true by deductive logic, but
not by inductive logic. There are degrees and stages of
election. There must be a chronological order in the his
tory of salvation. All are called sooner or later; some in
the sixth, others in the ninth, others in the eleventh, hour,
according to God's providence. Those who accept the call
and persevere in faith are among the elect (1 Pet. 1:1;
2 : 9). Those who reject it, become reprobate by their own
unbelief, and against God's wish and will. There is no ante
cedent decree of reprobation, but only a judicial act of
reprobation in consequence of man's sin.

Logic is a two-edged sword. It may lead from predestina-
rian premises to the conclusion that God is the author of
sin, which Calvin himself rejects and abhors as a blasphemy.
It may also lead to fatalism, pantheism, or universalism.
We must stop somewhere in our process of reasoning, or sac
rifice a part of the truth. Logic, it should be remembered,
deals only with finite categories, and cannot grasp infinite
truth. Christianity is not a logical or mathematical prob
lem, and cannot be reduced to the limitations of a human
system. It is above any particular system and comprehends
the truths of all systems. It is above logic, yet not illogical;
as revelation is above reason, yet not against reason.

We cannot conceive of God except as an omniscient and
omnipotent being, who from eternity foreknew and, in some
way, also foreordained all things that should come to pass in
his universe. He foreknew what he foreordained, and he

§ 114. CALVINISM EXAMINED. 573

foreordained what he foreknew ; his foreknowledge and fore-
ordination, his intelligence and will are coeternal, and must
harmonize. There is no succession of time, no before nor
after in the eternal God. The fall of the first man, with its
effects upon all future generations, cannot have been an
accident which God, as a passive or neutral spectator, simply
permitted to take place when he might so easily have pre
vented it. He must in some way have foreordained it, as
a means for a higher end, as a negative condition for the
greatest good. So far the force of reasoning, on the basis
of belief in a personal God, goes to the full length of Calvin-
istic supralapsarianism, and even beyond it, to the very verge
of universalism. If we give up the idea of a self-conscious,
personal God, reason would force us into fatalism or pantheism.
But there is a logic of ethics as well as of metaphysics.
God is holy as well as almighty and omniscient, and there
fore cannot be the author of sin. Man is a moral as well as
an intellectual being, and the claims of his moral constitution
are equal to the claims of his intellectual constitution. Con
science is as powerful a factor as reason. The most rigid
believer in divine sovereignty, if he be a Christian, cannot
get rid of the sense of personal accountability, though he
may be unable to reconcile the two. The harmony lies in
God and in the moral constitution of man. They are the
two complementary sides of one truth. Paul unites them
in one sentence : " Work out your own salvation with fear
and trembling ; for it is God who worketh in you both to
will and to work, for his good pleasure " (Phil. 2 : 13).
The problem, however, comes within the reach of possible
solution, if we distinguish between sovereignty as an inherent
power, and the exercise of sovereignty. God may limit the
exercise of his sovereignty to make room for the free action
of his creatures. It is by his sovereign decree that man is
free. Without such self-limitation he could not admonish
men to repent and believe. Here, again, the Calvinistic logic

574 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

must either bend or break. Strictly carried out, it would
turn the exhortations of God to the sinner into a solemn
mockery and cruel irony.

THE SCRIPTURE ARGUMENT.

Calvin, though one of the ablest logicians, cared less
for logic than for the Bible, and it is his obedience to the
Word of God that induced him to accept the decretum horri-
bile against his wish and will. His judgment is of the great
est weight, for he had no superior, and scarcely an equal, in
thorough and systematic Bible knowledge and exegetical
insight.

And here we must freely admit that not a few passages,
especially in the Old Testament, favor a double decree to the
extent of supreme supralapsarianism ; yea, they go beyond
the Calvinistic system, and seem to make God himself the
author of sin and evil. See Ex. 4 : 21 ; 7 : 13 (repeatedly
said of God's hardening Pharaoh's heart) ; Isa. 6:9, 10 ;
44 : 18 ; Jer. 6 : 21 ; Amos 3 : 6 (" Shall there be evil in a
city, and the Lord hath not done it?'*) ; Prov. 16 : 4 ; Matt.
11 : 25 ; 13 : 14, 15 ; John 12 : 40 ; Rom. 9 : 10-23 ; 11 : 7, 8 ;
1 Cor. 14 : 3 ; 2 Thess. 2 : 11 ; 1 Pet. 2:8; Jude 4 (" who
were of old set forth unto this condemnation").1

The rock of reprobation is the ninth chapter of Romans.
It is not accidental that Calvin elaborated and published the
second edition of his Institutes simultaneously with his Com
mentary on the Romans, at Strassburg, in 1539.

There are especially three passages in the ninth chapter,
which in their strict literal sense favor extreme Calvinism,

1 The last passage is often quoted for a decree of reprobation ; but the
verb Trpoyfypa/nfj-fvoi is wrongly translated " ordained " in the E. V. npoypdcpu
means to write before, and refers to previous writings, namely, the Scrip
tures of the O. T. Calvin correctly translates "prcescripti in hoc judicium," but
refers it, metaphorically, to the book of the divine counsel: " ceternum Dei
consilium liber vocatur."

§ 114. CALVINISM EXAMINED. 575

and are so explained by some of the severest grammatical
commentators of modern times (as Meyer and Weiss).

(a) 9 : 13 : " Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated," quoted
from Mai. 1 : 2, 3. This passage, whether we take it in
a literal or anthropopathic sense, has no reference to the eter
nal destiny of Jacob and Esau, but to their representative
position in the history of the theocracy. This removes the
chief difficulty. Esau received a temporal blessing from his
father (Gen. 27 : 39, 40), and behaved kindly and generously
to his brother (33 : 4) ; he probably repented of the folly of
his youth in selling his birthright,1 and may be among the
saved, as well as Adam and Eve — the first among the lost
and the first among the saved.

Moreover, the strict meaning of a positive hatred seems
impossible in the nature of the case, since it would contra
dict all we know from the Bible of the attributes of God.
A God of love, who commands us to love all men, even our
enemies, cannot hate a child before his birth, or any of his
creatures made in his own image. " Can a woman forget
her sucking child," says the Lord, " that she should not
have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, these may
forget, yet will I not forget thee " (Isa. 49 : 15). This is the
prophet's conception of the tender mercies of God. How
much more must it be the conception of the New Testament?
The word hate must, therefore, be understood as a strong^
Hebraistic expression for loving less or putting back ; as in
Gen. 29 : 31, where the original text says, " Leah was hated "
by Jacob, i.e. loved less than Rachel (comp. ver. 30). When
our Saviour says, Luke 14 : 26 : " If any man hateth not his
own father and mother and wife and children and brothers
and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my dis
ciple," he does not mean that his disciples should break the

1 This is implied in the passage, Heb. 12 : 17, whether we refer ^frdvoia to
Esau's late repentance (Calvin, Bleek), or to a change of mind in Isaac
(Beza, Weiss).

576 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

fifth commandment, and act contrary to his direction : "Love
your enemies, pray for them that persecute you" (Matt.
5 : 44), but simply that we should prefer him above every
thing, even life itself, and should sacrifice whatever comes in
conflict with him. This meaning is confirmed by the parallel
passage, Matt. 10 : 37 : " He that loveth father and mother
more than me is not worthy of me."

(5) 9 : 17. Paul traces the hardening of Pharaoh's heart
to the agency of God, and so far makes God responsible for
sin. But this was a judicial act of punishing sin with sin ;
for Pharaoh had first hardened his own heart (Ex. 8 : 15, 32;
9 : 34). Moreover, this passage has no reference to Pharaoh's
future fate any more than the passage about Esau, but both
refer to their place in the history of Israel.

(c) In 9 : 22 and 23, the Apostle speaks of " vessels of
wrath fitted unto destruction" (tcarrjpTicnjieva et? a7ra)\eiav),
and " vessels of mercy which he (God) prepared unto glory "
(a 7rpor]TOLfjLao-ev els Sofaz/). But the difference of the verbs,
and the difference between the passive (or middle) in the
first clause and the active in the second is most significant,
and shows that God has no direct agency in the destruction
of the vessels of wrath, which is due to their self-destruction ;
the participle perfect denotes the result of a gradual process and
a state of maturity for destruction, but not a divine purpose.
Calvin is too good an exegete to overlook this difference, and
virtually admits its force, although he tries to weaken it.

" They observe," he says of his opponents, " that it is not
said without meaning, that the vessels of wrath are fitted for
destruction, but that God prepared the vessels of mercy;
since by this mode of expression, Paul ascribes and challenges
to God the praise of salvation, and throws the blame of per
dition on those who by their choice procure it to themselves.
But though I concede to them that Paul softens the asperity
of the former clause by the difference of phraseology ; yet it is
not at all consistent to transfer the preparation for destruc-

§ 114. CALVINISM EXAMINED. 577

tion to any other than the secret counsel of God, which is
also asserted just before in the context, 'that God raised. up
Pharaoh, and whom he will he hardeneth.' Whence it fol
lows, that the cause of hardening is the secret counsel of God.
This, however, I maintain, which is observed by Augustin,
that when God turns wolves into sheep, he renovates them
bv more powerful grace to conquer their obstinacy; and
therefore the obstinate are not converted, because God exerts
not that mightier grace, of which he is not destitute if he
chose to display it." 1

PAUL'S TEACHING OF THE EXTENT OF REDEMPTION.

Whatever view we may take of these hard passages, we
should remember that the ninth chapter of Romans is only
a part of Paul's philosophy of history, unfolded in chapters
9-11. While the ninth chapter sets forth the divine sov
ereignty, the tenth chapter asserts the human responsibility,
and the eleventh looks forward to the future solution of the
dark problem, namely, the conversion of the fulness of
the Gentiles and the salvation of all Israel (11 : 25). And
he winds up the whole discussion with the glorious sentence :
" God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that he might have
mercy upon all" (32). This is the key for the understand
ing, not only of this section, but of the whole Epistle to the
Romans.2

1 Inst. III. ch. XXII. 1. In his Com. on Rom. 9 •. 22, 23, he ignores this
distinction and explains Kar^priff^va, " given up and appointed to destruc
tion, made and formed for this end" (devota et destinata exitio : sunt enim vasa
mr, id est in hoc facta et formata, ut documenta sint vindictce et fur or is Dei).
This is the extreme supralapsarian exposition. But other Reformed exegetes
fully acknowledge the difference of phraseology. It was pressed by those
members of the Westminster Assembly who sympathized with the hypothetical
universalism of the Saumur school of Cameron and Amyrauld. "The non-
elect," said Dr. Arrowsmith, "are said to be fitted to that destruction which
their sins bring upon them, but not by God." See Mitchell, Minutes of the
Westminster Assembly, pp. 152 sqq.; Schaff, Creeds, I. 770 sq.

2 " Das game Summariuni und der herrliche Schlussstein des ganzen bisherigen
Brieftheils." Weiss in the 6th ed. of Meyer on Romans (p. 555). Godet:

578 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

And this is in harmony with the whole spirit and aim of
this Epistle. It is easier to make it prove a system of condi
tional universalism than a system of dualistic particularism.
The very theme, 1 : 16, declares that the gospel is a power
of God for the salvation, not of a particular class, but of
" every one " that believeth. In drawing a parallel between
the first and the second Adam (5 : 12-21), he represents the
effect of the latter as equal in extent, and greater in intensity
than the effect of the former ; while in the Calvinistic system
it would be less. We have no right to limit " the many "
(oi TroXXof) and the "all" (navves) in one clause, and to
take it literally in the other. " If, by the trespass of the
one [Adam], death reigned through the one, much more
shall they that receive the abundance of grace and of the
gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, even
Jesus Christ. So, then, as through one trespass the judg
ment came unto all men to condemnation ; even so through
one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to
justification of life. For as through the one man's disobedi
ence the many [i.e. all} were made sinners, even so through
the obedience of the one shall the many [all} be made right
eous " (5 : 17-19). 1 The same parallel, without any restriction,
is more briefly expressed in the passage (1 Cor. 15 : 21) : " As
in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive " ;
and in a different form in Rom. 11 : 32 and Gal. 3 : 22, already
quoted.

" C'est id comme le point final oppose a tout ce qui precede ; ce dernier mot rend
compte de tout le plan de Dieu, dont les phases principals viennent d'etre
esquisse'es." The 'tva rovs iravras (Jews and Gentiles) teaches not, indeed, the
forced acceptance of mercy by all, but, at all events, the universality of the
divine purpose and intention. Meyer sees in this passage a conclusive exe-
getical argument against a decretum reprobationis.

1 Unfortunately the A. V. obliterates the force of the parallel in the fifth
chapter of Romans by neglecting the definite article before iro\\oi. " The
many" of the orisrinnl is onnosprl to "the one," and is equivalent to "all";
while "mnnv" would be opposed to "few." The Revised Version of 1881
corrects these mistakes.

§ 114. CALVINISM EXAMINED. 579

These passages contain, as in a nutshell, the theodicy of
Paul. They dispel the darkness of the ninth chapter of
Romans. They exclude all limitations of God's plan and
intention to a particular class ; they teach not, indeed, that
all men will be actually saved — for many reject the divine
offer, and die in impenitence, — but that God sincerely desires
and actually provides salvation for all. Whosoever is saved,
is saved by grace ; whosoever is lost, is lost by his own guilt
of unbelief.

THE OFFER OF SALVATION.

There remains, it is true, the great difficulty that the offer
of salvation is limited in this world, as far as we know, to
a part of the human race, and that the great majority pass
into the other world without any knowledge of the historical
Christ.

But God gave to every man the light of reason and con
science (Rom. 1 : 19 ; 2 : 14, 15). The Divine Logos "light-
eth every man " that cometh into the world (John 1:9).
God never left himself "without witness" (Acts 14:17).
He deals with his creatures according to the measure of their
ability and opportunity, whether they have one or five or ten
talents (Matt. 25 : 15 sqq.). He is "no respecter of persons,
but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh right
eousness, is acceptable to him " (Acts 10 : 35).

May we not then cherish at least a charitable hope, if not
a certain belief, that a God of infinite love and justice will
receive into his heavenly kingdom all those who die inno
cently ignorant of the Christian revelation, but in a state of
preparedness or disposition for the gospel, so that they would
thankfully accept it if offered to them? Cornelius was in
such a condition before Peter entered his house, and he rep
resents a multitude which no man can number. We cannot
know and measure the secret operations of the Spirit of God,
who works " when, where, and how he pleases."

580 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Surely, here is a point where the rigor of the old ortho
doxy, whether Roman Catholic, or Lutheran, or Calvinistic,
must be moderated. And the Calvinistic system admits more
readily of an expansion than the churchly and sacramental
type of orthodoxy.

THE GENERAL LOVE OF GOD TO ALL MEN.

This doctrine of a divine will and divine provision of a
universal salvation, on the sole condition of faith, is taught
in many passages which admit of no other interpretation,
and which must, therefore, decide this whole question. For
it is a settled rule in hermeneutics that dark passages must
be explained by clear passages, and not vice versa. Such
passages are the following : —

" I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith
the Lord our God : wherefore turn yourselves, and live "
(Ezek. 18 : 32, 23 ; 33 : 11). " And I, if I be lifted up from
the earth, will draw all men unto myself" (John 12:32).
u God so loved the world " (that is, all mankind) " that he
gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him
should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
" God our Saviour ivilleth that all men should be saved and
come to the knowledge of the truth " (1 Tim. 2 : 4).1 " The
grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men "
(Tit. 2 : 11). "The Lord is long-suffering to you-ward, not
ivishing that any should perish, but that all should come to
repentance " (2 Pet. 3 : 9).2 " Jesus Christ is the propitia
tion for our sins ; and not for ours only, but also for (the

1 Calvin explains " all men " to mean men of all classes and conditions
(" de hominum generibus, non singulis persom's"). See his Comm. on 1 Tim.
2 : 4, and his sermon on the passage. But the Apostle emphasizes " all
men" with reference to prayer "for all men," which he commands in ver. 1,
and which cannot be limited.

2 Calvin arbitrarily explains this passage of the " voluntas Dei quce nobis
in evangelic patefit," but not " de arcano Dei consilio quo destinati sunt reprobt
in suum exitium."

§ 114. CALVINISM EXAMINED. 581

sins of) the whole ivorld" (1 John 2:2). It is impossible to
state the doctrine of a universal atonement more clearly
in so few words.1

To these passages should be added the divine exhortations
to repentance, and the lament of Christ over the inhabitants
of Jerusalem who "would not" come to him (Matt. 23 : 37).
These exhortations are insincere or unmeaning, if God does
not want all men to be saved, and if men have not the ability
to obey or disobey the voice. The same is implied in the
command of Christ to preach the gospel to the whole crea
tion (Mark 16 : 15), and to disciple all nations (Matt. 28 : 19).

It is impossible to restrict these passages to a particular
class without doing violence to the grammar and the context.

The only way of escape is by the distinction between a
revealed will of God, which declares his willingness to save
all men, and a secret will of God which means to save only
some men.2 Augustin and Luther made this distinction.
Calvin uses it in explaining 2 Pet. 3 : 9, and those passages
of the Old Testament which ascribe repentance and changes
to the immutable God.

But this distinction overthrows the system which it is
intended to support. A contradiction between intention and
expression is fatal to veracity, which is the foundation of
human morality, and must be an essential attribute of the
Deity. A man who says the reverse of what he means is
called, in plain English, a hypocrite and a liar. It does not
help the matter when Calvin says, repeatedly, that there are
not two wills in God, but only two ways of speaking adapted

1 Calvin understands " totus mundus" in this passage to mean " tola eccle-
sia ! " This is as impossible as the confinement of " the world," John 3 : 16,
to " the elect." He mentions, however, also a better explanation, that Christ
died " sufficienter pro toto mundo, sed pro electis tantum efficaciter."

2 Various terms for the distinction : voluntas revelata and voluntas arcana ;
voluntas signi and voluntas beneplaciti (eu8o«:tas) ; voluntas universalis and volun
tas speciafis ; verbum externum et verbum internum. The oft-quoted proof text,
Deut. 29 : 29, teaches a distinction, but not a contradiction, between the secret
things and the revealed things of God.

582 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

to our weakness. Nor does it remove the difficulty when he
warns us to rely on the revealed will of God rather than
brood over his secret will.

The greatest, the deepest, the most comforting word in
the Bible is the word, " God is love," and the greatest fact
in the world's history is the manifestation of that love in the
person and the work of Christ. That word and this fact are
the sum and substance of the gospel, and the only solid
foundation of Christian theology. The sovereignty of God
is acknowledged by Jews and Mohammedans as well as by
Christians, but the love of God is revealed only in the Chris
tian religion. It is the inmost essence of God, and the key
to all his .ways and works. It is the central truth which
sheds light upon all other truths.

§ 115. Calvin's Theory of the Sacraments.

Inst. bk. IV. chs. XIV.-XIX.

Next to the doctrine of predestination, Calvin paid most
attention to the doctrine of the sacraments. And here he
was original, and occupied a mediating position between
Luther and Zwingli. His sacramental theory passed into all
the Reformed Confessions more than his view of predestina
tion.

Calvin accepts Augustin's definition that a sacrament
(corresponding to the Greek " mystery ") is " a visible sign
of an invisible grace," but he improves it by emphasizing the
sealing character of the sacrament, according to Rom. 4 : 11,
and the necessity of faith as the condition of receiving the
benefit of the ordinance. " It is," he says, " an outward sign
by which the Lord seals in our consciences the promises of
his good-will towards us, to support the weakness of our
faith, or a testimony of his grace towards us, with a reciprocal
attestation of our piety towards him." It is even more
expressive than the word. It is a divine seal of authentica-

§ 115. CALVIN'S THEORY OF THE SACRAMENTS. 583

tion, which sustains and strengthens our faith. " Lord, I
believe, help thou mine unbelief" (Mark 9 : 24). To be effi
cacious, the sacraments must be accompanied by the Spirit,
that internal Teacher, by whose energy alone our hearts are
penetrated, and our affections moved. Without the influ
ence of the Spirit, the sacraments can produce no more
effect upon our minds, than the splendor of the sun on blind
eyes, or the sound of a voice upon deaf ears. If the seed
falls on a desert spot, it will die ; but if it be cast upon a
cultivated field, it will bring forth abundant increase.

Calvin vigorously opposes, as superstitious and mischiev
ous, the scholastic opus operatum theory that the sacraments
justify and confer grace by an intrinsic virtue, provided we
do not obstruct their operation by a mortal sin. A sacra
ment without faith misleads the mind to rest in the exhibi
tion of a sensuous object rather than in God himself, and is
ruinous to true piety.

He agrees with Augustin in the opinion that the sign and
the matter of the sacrament are not inseparably connected,
and that it produces its intended effect only in the elect.
He quotes from him the sentence : " The morsel of bread
given by the Lord to Judas was poison ; not because Judas
received an evil thing, but because, being a wicked man, he
received a good thing in a sinful manner." But this must
not be understood to mean that the virtue and truth of the
sacrament depend on the condition or choice of him who
receives it. The symbol consecrated by the word of the
Lord is in reality what it is declared to be, and preserves its
virtue, although it confers no benefit on a wicked and impious
person. Augustin happily solves this question in a few
words : " If thou receive it carnally, still it ceases not to be
spiritual ; but it is not so to thee." The office of the sacra
ment is the same as that of the word of God ; both offer
Christ and his heavenly grace to us, but they confer no
benefit without the medium of faith.

584 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Calvin discusses at length the seven sacraments of the
Roman Church, the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the
mass. But it is sufficient here to state his views on baptism
and the Lord's Supper, the only sacraments which Christ
directly instituted for perpetual observance in the Church.

§ 116. Baptism.

Inst. IV. chs. XV. and XVI. Also his Brieve instruction, pour armer tons bons
Jideles contre les erreurs de la secte commune des Anabaptistes, Geneva, 1544,
2d ed. 1545; Latin version by Nicolas des Gallars. In Opera, VII. 45 sqq.
This tract was written against the fanatical wing of the Anabaptists at
the request of the pastors of Neuchatel. His youthful treatise On the
Sleep of the Soul was also directed against the Anabaptists. See above,
§ 77, pp. 325 sqq. Calvin's wife was the widow of a converted Ana
baptist.

Baptism, Calvin says, is the sacrament of ablution and
regeneration ; the Eucharist is the sacrament of redemption
and sanctification. Christ " came by water and by blood "
(1 John 5:6); that is, to purify and to redeem. The Spirit,
as the third and chief witness, confirms and secures the wit
ness of water and blood ; that is, of baptism and the eucha-
rist (1 John 5 : 8).1 " This sublime mystery was strikingly
exhibited on the cross, when blood and water issued from
Christ's side, which on this account Augustin justly called
' the fountain of our sacraments.' "

I. Calvin defines baptism as "a sign of initiation, by which
we are admitted into the society of the Church, in order that,
being incorporated into Christ, we may be numbered among
the children of God."

II. Faith derives three benefits from this sacrament.

1. It assures us, like a legal instrument properly attested,
that all our sins are cancelled, and will never be imputed
unto us (Eph. 5:26; Tit. 3:5; 1 Pet. 3:21). It is far

1 Calvin confines himself (IV. ch. XIV. § 22) to the genuine words of
the three witnesses in this passage, and justly ignores the interpolation of the
textus receptus, which is omitted in the Revised Version.

§ 116. BAPTISM. 585

more than a mark or sign by which we profess our religion
before men, as soldiers wear the insignia of their sovereign.
It is "for the remission of sins," past and future. No new
sacrament is necessary for sins committed after baptism. At
whatever time we are baptized, we are washed and purified
for the whole life. " Whenever we have fallen, we must
recur to the remembrance of baptism, and arm our minds
with the consideration of it, that we may be always certified
and assured of the remission of our sins."

2. Baptism shows us our mortification in Christ, and our
new life in him. All who receive baptism with faith expe
rience the efficacy of Christ's death and the power of his
resurrection, and should therefore walk in newness of life
(Rom. 6 : 3, 4, 11).

3. Baptism affords us " the certain testimony that we are
not only engrafted into the life and death of Christ, but are
so united to him as to be partakers of all his benefits " (Gal.
3 : 26, 27).

But while baptism removes the guilt and punishment of
hereditary and actual sin, it does not destroy our natural
depravity, which is perpetually producing works of the flesh,
and will not be wholly abolished till the close of this mortal
life. In the mean time we must hold fast to the promise of
God in baptism, fight manfully against sin and temptation,
and press forward to complete victory.

III. On the question of the validity of baptism by unworthy
ministers, Calvin fully agrees with Augustin against the view
of the Donatists, who measured the virtue of the sacrament
by the moral character of the minister. He applies the argu
ment to the Anabaptists of his day, who denied the validity
of Catholic baptism on account of the idolatry and corruption
of the papal Church. "Against these follies we shall be
sufficiently fortified, if we consider that we are baptized not
in the name of any man, but in the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit, and consequently that it is not the

586 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

baptism of man, but of God, by whomsoever administered."
The papal priests " did not baptize us into the fellowship of
their own ignorance or sacrilege, but into the faith of Jesus
Christ, because they invoked, not their own name, but the
name of God, and baptized in no name but his. As it was
the baptism of God, it certainly contained the promise of
remission of sins, mortification of the flesh, spiritual vivifica-
tion, and participation of Christ. Thus it was no injury to
the Jews to have been circumcised by impure and apostate
priests ; nor was the sign on that account useless, so as to
render it necessary to be repeated, but it was sufficient
to recur to the genuine original. . . . When Hezekiah and
Josiah assembled together out of all Israel, those who had
revolted from God, they did not call any of them to a second
circumcision.''

He argues against the Anabaptists from the fact also, that
the apostles who had received the baptism of John, were not
rebaptized. " And among us, what rivers would be sufficient
for the repetition of ablutions as numerous as the errors
which are daily corrected among us by the mercy of the
Lord/' !

1 These passages (IV. ch. XV. §§ 16 and 17) furnish arguments against the
decision of the Old- School-Presbyterian General Assembly held at Cincinnati,
1845, which, with an overwhelming majority, declared Roman Catholic bap
tism to be invalid, and thus virtually unchurched and unbaptized the greater
part of Christendom, including the founders of the Protestant churches, who
were baptized in the Roman communion, as the apostles were circumcised in
the synagogue. But Drs. Charles Hodge of Princeton and Henry B. Smith
of New York — the two leading Presbyterian divines of that day — vigorously
protested against that anomalous decision ; and when, in the United Assembly,
held likewise at Cincinnati, in the year 1885, an attempt was made to
re-enact that decision, it failed by a very large majority. Calvin did not
unchurch the Church of Rome. " While we refuse," he says (Inst. IV. ch.
II. § 12), " to allow to the papists the [exclusive] title of the Church, without
any qualification or restriction, we do not deny that there are churches among
them. ... I affirm that there are churches, in as much as God has wonder
fully preserved among them a remnant of his people, and as there still
remain some marks of the Church, especially those, the efficacy of which
neither the craft of the devil, nor the malice of men can ever destroy."

§ 116. BAPTISM. 587

IV. He pleads for the simplicity of the ordinance against
the adventitious medley of incantation, wax-taper, spittle, salt,
and " other fooleries," which from an early age were publicly
introduced. "Such theatrical pomps dazzle the eye and
stupify the minds of the ignorant." The simple ceremony
as instituted by Christ, accompanied by a confession of faith,
prayers, and thanksgivings, shines with the greater lustre,
unencumbered with extraneous corruptions. He disapproves
the ancient custom of baptism by laymen in cases of danger
of death. God can regenerate a child without baptism.

V. The mode of baptism was not a subject of controversy
at that time. Calvin recognized the force of the philological
and historical argument in favor of immersion, but regarded
pouring and sprinkling as equally valid, and left room for
Christian liberty according to the custom in different coun
tries.1 Immersion was then still the prevailing mode in
England, and continued till the reign of Elizabeth, who was
herself baptized by immersion.

VI. But while meeting the Baptists half-way on the ques
tion of the mode, he strenuously defends psedobaptism, and
devotes a whole chapter to it.2 He urges, as arguments,
circumcision, which was a type of baptism ; the nature of the
covenant, which comprehends the offspring of pious parents ;
Christ's treatment of children, as belonging to the kingdom
of heaven, and therefore entitled to the sign and seal of
membership ; the word of Peter addressed to the converts
on the day of Pentecost, who were accustomed to infant cir
cumcision, that " the promise is to you and your children "
(Acts 2 : 39) ; Paul's declaration that the children are sanc-

1 IV. ch. XV. 19: " Cfpfcrum meryaturne totus qui tingitur, idqne ter an semel,
an infusa tantnm aqua aspergatttr, minimum refert : sed id pro regionum diversitate
ecclesiis liberum esse debet. Quanqnam et ipsum BAPTIZANDI verbum MERGERE
significat, et mergendi ritum veteri ecclesia*, observatum fuisse constat." See above,
p. 373, note. Luther held substantially the same view, with a stronger lean
ing to immersion or dipping, which he prescribes in his Taufbiichlein, 1523.
See vol. VI. 218 and 607 sq. 2 Ch> XVI. 1-32.

588 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

tified by their parents (1 Cor. 7:14), etc. He refutes at
length the objections of the Anabaptists, with special refer
ence to Servetus, who agreed with them on that point.

He assigns to infant baptism a double benefit : it ratifies to
pious parents the promise of God's mercy to their children,
and increases their sense of responsibility as to their educa
tion ; it engrafts the children into the body of the Church,
and afterwards acts as a powerful stimulus upon them to be
true to the baptismal vow.

§ 117. The Lord's Supper. The Consensus of Zurich.

I. Inst. IV. chs. XVII. and XVIII. Comp. the first ed., cap. IV., in Opera,

I. 118 sqq. — Petit traicte de la sainte ccne de nostre Seigneur Jesus-Christ.
Auquel est demontre' la vraye institution, profit et utilite' d'icelle, Geneve, 1541,
1542, 1549. Opera, V. 429-460. Latin version by Nicholas des Gallars :
Libellus de Ccena Domini, a loanne Calvino pridem Gallica lingua scriptus,
mine vero in Latinum sermonem conversus, Gen., 1545. Also translated into
English. Remarkably moderate. — The two catechisms of Calvin. —
Consensio mutua in re sacrainentaria Tigurince Ecclesia; et D. Calvini minis-
tri Genevensis Ecclesiai jam nunc ab ipsis aut/ioribns edita (usually called
Consensus Tiqnrinus}, simultaneously published at Geneva and Zurich,
1551 ; French ed. L'accord passe', etc., Gen., 1551. In Opera, VII. 689-748.
The Latin text also in Niemeyer's Collectio Conf, pp. 191-217. A German
translation (Die Ziin'cher Uebereinkunft~) in Bickel's Bekenntnissschriften
der evang. reform. Kirche, pp. 173-181. Comp. the correspondence of
Calvin with Bullinger, Farel, etc., concerning the Consensus. — Calvin's
polemical writings against Joachim Westphal, namely, Defensio sanw et
orthodoxce doctrine de sacrament.it!, Geneva, 1554, Ziirich, 1555; Secunda
Defensio . . . contra Westphali calumnias, Gen., 1556; and Ultima Admo-
nitio ad Westphalum, Gen., 1557. In Opera, IX. 1-120, 137-252. Lastly,
his book against Tilemann Hesshus (Hesshusen), Dilncida Explicatio sancc
doctrine de vera parti cipatione carnis et sanguinis Christi in sacra Coena, ad
discutiendas Heshusii nebulas, Gen., 1561. In Opera, IX. 457-524. (In the
Amsterdam ed., Tom. IX. 648-723.) Klebiz of Heidelberg, Beza, and
Pierre Boqtiin also took part in the controversy with Hesshus.

II. For a comparative statement of the eucharistic views of Luther, Zwingli,
and Calvin, see this Histon/, vol. VI. 669-682 ; and Creeds of Christendom,
I. 455 sqq. ; 471 sqq. Calvin's doctrine has been fully set forth by
EBRARP in his Dogma v. neil. Abendmahl, II. 402-525, and by NEVIN in
his Mystical Presence, Philad., 1846, pp. 54-67; and in the " Mercersburg
Review" for September, 1850, pp. 421-548 (against Dr. Hodge in the
"Princeton Review" for 1848). Comp. also §§ 132-134 below; HENRY,
P. I. ch. XIII.; and STAHELIN, II. 189 sqq.

§ 117. THE LORD'S SUPPER. 589

In the eucharistic controversy, which raged with such
fury in the age of the Reformation, and was the chief cause
of separation in its ranks, Calvin consistently occupied from
the beginning to the end the position of a mediator and
peacemaker between the Lutherans and Zwmglians, between
Wittenberg and Zurich.

The way for a middle theory was prepared by the Tetra-
politan or Swabian Confession, drawn up by Martin Bucer,
a born compromiser, during the Diet of Augsburg, 1530, l and
by the Wittenberg Concordia, 1536, which for a while satis
fied the Lutherans, but was justly rejected by the Swiss.

Calvin published his theory in its essential features in the
first edition of the Institutes (1536), more fully in the second
edition (1539), then in a special tract written at Strassburg.
He defended it in various publications, and adhered to it
with his usual firmness. It was accepted by the Reformed
Churches, and never rejected by Luther; on the contrary,
lie is reported to have spoken highly of Calvin's tract, De
Coena Domini, when he got hold of a Latin copy in 1545,
a year before his death.2

Calvin approached the subject with a strong sense of the
mystery of the vital union of Christ with the believer, which
is celebrated in the eucharist. " I exhort my readers," he
says, in the last edition of his Institutes, " to rise much higher
than I am able to conduct them ; for as to myself, whenever
I handle this subject, after having endeavored to say every
thing, I am conscious of having said but very little in com
parison with its excellence. And though the conceptions
of the mind can far exceed the expressions of the tongue ;
yet, with the magnitude of the subject, the mind itself is

1 Ch. XVIII. See vol. VI. 720.

2 See vol. VI. 660. But Luther never gave up his dislike of Zwingli ; and
in one of his last letters, in which he describes himself as " infelicissimus om
nium howinnm," he wrote : " Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel
of the Sacramenlarians, nor standeth in the way of the Zwinqlians, nor sitteth
in the seat of the Ziirichers" De Wette, V. 778.

590 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

oppressed and overwhelmed. Nothing remains for me, there
fore, but to break forth in admiration of that mystery, which
the mind is unable clearly to understand, or the tongue to
express." l

He aimed to combine the spiritualism of Zwingli with the
realism of Luther, and to avoid the errors of both. And he
succeeded as well as the case will admit. He agreed with
Zwingli in the figurative interpretation of the words of insti
tution, which is now approved by the best Protestant exe-
getes, and rejected the idea of a corporal presence and oral
participation in the way of transubstantiation or consubstan-
tiation, which implies either a miracle or an omnipresence of
the body of Christ. But he was not satisfied with a purely
commemorative or symbolical theory, and laid the chief
stress on the positive side of an actual communion with the
ever-living Christ. He expressed in private letters the opin
ion that Zwingli had been so much absorbed with overturn
ing the superstition of a carnal presence that he denied or
obscured the true efficacy of the sacrament.2 He acknowl
edged the mystery of the real presence and real participation,

1 Inst. IV. eh. XVII. 7.

2 He wrote from Strassburg, May 19, 1539, to Andre Zebedee, a minister
at Orbe : " Nihil fuisse asperitatis in Zivinglii doctrina, tibi minime concedo.
Siquidem videre promptum est, ut nimium occupatus in evertenda carnalis prcesen-
tice superstitione, veram communicationis vim ut sinful disjecerif, aut certe obscura-
rit." Herminjard, V. 318. In the same letter he characterizes Zwingli's
view as falsa et perniciosa. In a letter to Farel, Feb. 27, 1540, he disapproves
Ze'be'deVs extravagant eulogy of Zwingli, and expresses his preference for
Luther : " Nam si inter se comparantur, scis ipse, quanta intervaUo Lutherns
excellat." But he disowns any intention to dishonor his memory. Hermin
jard, V. 191. In a letter to Richard du Bois, from Strassburg, 1540 (ibid.
VI. 425), he says, with evident allusion to Zwingli and (Eeolampadius, that he
never liked the view of those who in "evertenda localis prccsentice superstitione
nimis occupati, verai pnesentue virtutem vel elevabant extenuando, vel subticendo ex
hominum memoria quodammodo delebant. Sed est aliguid medium," etc. In a
letter to Viret (Sept. 3, 1542, in Opera, XI. 438) he remarks that he never
read all of Zwingli's works, and hoped that towards the end of his life
he retracted and corrected what first had escaped him carelessly, but "I
remember, in his earlier writings how profane his doctrine of the sacraments
is (quam profana sit ejus de sacramentis doctrina)."

§ 117. THE LORD'S SUPPER. 591

but understood them spiritually and dynamically. He con
fined the participation of the body and blood of Christ to
believers, since faith is the only means of communion with
Christ ; while Luther extended it to all communicants, only
with opposite effects.

The following is a brief summary of his view from the last
edition of the Institutes (1559) : —

After receiving us into his family by baptism, God under
takes to sustain and to nourish us as long as we live, and
gives us a pledge of his gracious intention in the sacrament
of the holy communion. This is a spiritual banquet, in
which Christ testifies himself to be the bread of life, to feed
our souls for a true and blessed immortality. The signs of
bread and wine represent to us the invisible nourishment
which we receive from the body and blood of Christ. They
are exhibited in a figure and image, adapted to our feeble
capacity, and rendered certain by visible tokens and pledges,
which the dullest minds can understand. This mystical
benediction, then, is designed to assure us that the body of
the Lord was once offered as a sacrifice for us upon which
we may now feed, and that his blood was once shed for us
and is our perpetual drink. " His flesh is true meat, and his
blood is true drink" (John 6:55). "We are members of
his body, of his flesh, and of his bones " (Eph. 5 : 30). " This
is a great mystery " (ver. 32), which can be admired rather
than expressed. Our souls are fed by the flesh and blood of
Christ, just as our corporal life is preserved and sustained
by bread and wine. Otherwise there would be no propriety
in the analogy of the sign. The breaking of the bread is
indeed symbolical, yet significant ; for God is not a deceiver
who sets before us an empty sign. The symbol of the body
assures us of the donation of the invisible substance, so that
in receiving the sign we receive the thing itself. The thing
signified is exhibited and offered to all who come to that
spiritual banquet, but it is advantageously enjoyed only by
those who receive it with true faith and gratitude.

592 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Calvin lays great stress on the supernatural agency of the
Holy Spirit in the communion. This was ignored by Luther
and Zwingli. The Spirit raises our hearts from earth to
heaven, as he does in every act of devotion (sursum corda),
and he brings down the life-giving power of the exalted
Redeemer in heaven, and thus unites what is, according to
our imperfect notions, separated by local distance.1 The
medium of communication is faith. Calvin might have sus
tained his view by the old liturgies of the Oriental Church,
which have a special prayer invoking the Holy Spirit at the
consecration of the eucharistic elements.2

He quotes several passages from Augustin in favor of the
spiritual real presence. Ratramnus in the ninth, and Berengar
in the eleventh, century had likewise appealed to Augustin
against the advocates of a carnal presence and participation.3

When Luther reopened the eucharistic controversy by a
fierce attack upon the Zwinglians (1545), who defended their
martyred Reformer in a sharp reply, Calvin was displeased
with both parties, and labored to bring about a reconcilia
tion.4 He corresponded with Bullinger (the Melanchthon
of the Swiss Church), and, on his invitation, he went to
Zurich with Farel (May, 1549). The delicate negotiations
were carried on by both parties with admirable frankness,
moderation, wisdom, and patience. The result was the
" Consensus Tigurinus," in which Calvin states his doctrine
as nearly as possible in agreement with Zwingli. This docu
ment was published in 1551, and adopted by all the Reformed
Cantons, except Bern, which cherished a strong dislike to
Calvin's rigorism. It was also favorably received in France,
England, and in parts of Germany. Melanchthon declared

1 See the passages quoted in vol. VI. 679, note 1.

2 The tiriK\t]ffis irvfvuaTos ayiov. The Latin liturgies ascribe the power of
consecration to Christ's words of institution. See vol. III. 513.

8 See vol. IV. 549 sqq. and 564 sqq. Calvin refers to the Berengar con
troversy.

4 See his letter to Bullinger, quoted in vol. VI. 661.

§ 117. THE LORD'S SUPPER. 593

to Lavater (Bullinger's son-in-law) that he then for the first
time understood the Swiss, and would never again oppose
them ; but he struck out the clause of the " Consensus "
which confined the efficacy of the sacrament to the elect.

But while the " Consensus " brought peace to the Swiss
Churches, and satisfied the Melanchthonians, it was assailed
by Westphal and Hesshus, who out-luthered Luther in zeal
and violence, and disturbed the last years of Melanchthon
and Calvin. We shall discuss this controversy in the next
chapter.

The Calvinistic theory of the Eucharist passed into all
the Reformed Confessions, and is very strongly stated in the
Heidelberg Catechism (1563), the chief symbol of the Ger
man and Dutch Reformed Churches.1 In practice, however,
it has, among Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists,
largely given way to the Zwinglian view, which is more
plain and intelligible, but ignores the mystical element in
the holy communion.

1 Questions 76, 78, 79. Comp. Westminster Confession, ch. XXIX. 7, and
Westminster Larger Catechism, qu. 170.

CHAPTER XV.
THEOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES.
' § 118. Calvin as a Controversialist.

CALVIN was involved in several controversies, chiefly on
account of his doctrine of predestination. He displayed a
decided superiority over all his opponents, as a scholar and
a reasoner. He was never at a loss for an argument. He
had also the dangerous gift of wit, irony, and sarcasm,
but not the more desirable gift of harmless humor, which
sweetens the bitterness of controversy, and lightens the
burden of daily toil. Like David, in the imprecatory Psalms,
he looked upon the enemies of his doctrine as enemies of
God. " Even a dog barks," he wrote to the queen of Navarre,
" when his master is attacked ; how could I be silent when
the honor of my Lord is assailed ? " 1 He treated his oppo
nents — Pighius, Bolsec, Castellio, and Servetus — with sov
ereign contempt, and called them " nebulones? nugatores,
canes, porci, bestice. Such epithets are like weeds in the
garden of his chaste and elegant style. But they were freely
used by the ancient fathers, with the exception of Chrysos-
tom and Augustin, in dealing with heretics, and occur even

1 This characteristic expression he uses repeatedly; for instance, in the
work on the Necessity of Reforming the Church, in Opera, VI. 503 : " Cams,
si quam suo domino violentiam inferri viderit, protinus latrabit : nos tot sacrilegiis
violari sacrum Dei nomen taciti aspiceremus ? Et ubi esset illud : Opprobria expro-
bantium tibi ceciderunt super me (Ps. 69:9)?" And, again in the same book
(fol. 507), with the addition, that a dog would rather risk his life than be silent.

2 In applying the epithet nebulo to Castellio, he translates it by the French
un brouilhn, which means a confused and turbulent fellow (not a scamp).
Schweizer renders it Wirrkopf (I. 212).

594

§ 119. CALVIN AND PIGH1US. 695

in the Scriptures, but impersonally.1 His age saw nothing
improper in them. Beza says that " no expression unworthy
of a good man ever fell from the lips of Calvin." The taste
of the sixteenth century differed widely from that of the
nineteenth. The polemical writings of Protestants and
Romanists alike abound in the most violent personalities and
coarse abuse. Luther wielded the club of Hercules against
Tetzel, Eck, Emser, Cochlseus, Henry VIII., Duke Henry of
Brunswick, and the Sacrameiitarians. Yet there were hon
orable exceptions even then, as Melanchthon and Bullinger.
A fiery temper is a propelling force in history ; nothing
great can be done without enthusiasm ; moral indignation
against wrong is inseparable from devotion to what is right ;
hatred is the negative side of love. But temper must be
controlled by reason, and truth should be spoken in love,
"with malice to none, with charity for all." Opprobrious
and abusive terms always hurt a good cause ; self-restraint
and moderation strengthen it. Understatement commands
assent : overstatement provokes opposition.

§ 119. Calvin and Pighius.

I. ALBERTUS PIGHIUS: De libero hominis arbitrio et divina gratia libri decem.

Colonia?, 1542, mense Augusto. Dedicated to Cardinal Sadolet. He
wrote also Assertio hierarchies, ecclesiasticce, a complete defence of the
Roman Church, dedicated to Pope Paul III., 1538.

CALVIV : Defensio sancc et orthodoxce doctrines, de servitute et liberatione humani
arbitrii adversus calumnias Alberti Pighii Campensis. With a preface to
Melanchthon. Geneva, 1543. In Opera, VI. 225-404. (Amsterdam ed.
t. VIII. 116 sqq.) The same in French, Geneva, 1560.

II. BAYLE : Art. Pighius, in his " Diet, hist." — HENRY, II. 285 sqq. (English
trans. 1.492 sqq.). — DYER (1850), pp. 158-165. — SCHWEIZER: Die protest.
Centraldogmen (1854), I. 180-200. Very satisfactory. — WERNER (R.
Cath.) : Geschichte der apologetischen und polemischen Literatur der christl.
Theokgie (1865), IV. 272 sq. and 298. Superficial. — STAHELIN, II. 281-
287. — Prolegomena to Calvin's Opera, VI. pp. XXIII.-XXV.

As Erasmus had attacked Luther's doctrine on the slavery
of the human will, and provoked Luther's crushing reply,

1 Isa. 56 : 10 ; Matt. 7:6; Phil. 3:2; Rev. 22 : 16.

596 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Albert Pighius attacked Luther and chiefly Calvin on the
same vulnerable point.

Pighius (or Pigghe) of Campen in Holland, educated at
Louvain and Cologne, and a pupil of Pope Adrian VI., whom
he followed to Rome, was a learned and eloquent divine and
deputed on various missions by Clement VII. and Paul III.
He may have seen Calvin at the Colloquies in Worms and
Ratisbon. He died as canon and archdeacon of Utrecht,
Dec. 26, 1542, a few months after the publication of his
book against Calvin and the other Reformers. Beza calls
him the first sophist of the age, who, by gaining a victory
over Calvin, hoped to attain to a cardinal's hat. But it is
wrong to judge of motives without evidence. His retirement
to Utrecht could not promote such ambition.1

Pighius represents the dogma of the slavery of the human
will, and of the absolute necessity of all that happens, as the
cardinal error of the Reformation, and charges it with leading
to complete moral indifference. He wrote ten books against
it. In the first six books, he defends the doctrine of free-will ;
in the last four books, he discusses divine grace, foreknowl
edge, predestination, and providence, and, last, the Scripture
passages on these subjects. He teaches the Semi-Pelagian
theory with some Pelagian features, and declares that " our
works are meritorious before God." After the Synod of
Trent had more carefully guarded the doctrine of justification
against Semi-Pelagianism, the Spanish Inquisition placed his
book, De libero arbitrio, and his tract, De peccato originali,
on the Index, and Cardinal Bona recommended caution in
reading them, since he did not always present the reliable

1 Henry says (II. 289) that Pighius was converted by Calvin's argument,
but he died (December, 1542) before Calvin's reply was published (February,
1543). The story rests on the authority of Crakanthorpe, who asserts, in his
Defensio Ecclesice Anglicans, that Pighius by reading Calvin's Institutes for the
purpose of refuting them, became himself a Calvinist in one of the chief
articles of faith (he does not say which). The story has been long ago
rejected by Gerdesius, Hist. Evang. Renovati, III. § 50. Comp. Dyer, p. 160.

§ 119. CALVIN AND PIGHIUS. 597

orthodox doctrine. Pighius was not ashamed to copy, with
out acknowledgment, whole pages from Calvin's Institutes,
where it suited his purpose. Calvin calls him a plagiarist,
and says, " With what right he publishes such sections as his
own, I cannot see, unless he claims, as enemy, the privilege
of plunder."

The arguments of Pighius against the doctrine of the
slavery of the human will are these : It contradicts common
sense ; it is inconsistent with the admitted freedom of will
in civil and secular matters ; it destroys all morality and
discipline, turns men into animals and monsters, makes God
the author of sin, and perverts his justice into cruelty, and
his wisdom into folly. He derives these heresies from the
ancient Gnostics and Simon Magus, except that Luther sur
passed them all in impiety.

Calvin's answer was written in about two months, and
amidst many interruptions. He felt the weight of the objec
tions, but he always marched up to the cannon's mouth. He
admits, incidentally, that Luther often used hyperbolical ex
pressions in order to rouse attention. He also allows the
liberum arbitrium in the sense that man acts voluntarily and
of his inner impulse.1 But he denies that man, without the
assistance of the Holy Spirit, has the power to choose what is
spiritually good, and quotes Rom. 6:17; 7 : 14, 23. " Man has
arbitrium spontaneum, so that he willingly and by choice does
evil, without compulsion from without, and, therefore, he
incurs guilt. But, owing to native depravity, his will is so
given to sin that it always chooses evil. Hence spontaneity
and enslavement may exist together. The voluntas is sponta-
nea, but not libera ; it is not coacta, yet serva" This is an
anticipation of the artificial distinction between natural ability
and moral inability — a distinction which is practically use
less. As regards the teaching of the early Church, he could
not deny that the Fathers, especially Origen, exalt the free-

1 Sponte et libenter, interiore electionis motu.

598 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

dom of the will ; but he could claim Augustin in his later
writings, in which he retracted his earlier advocacy of free
dom. The objection that the slavery of the will nullifies
the exhortations to repent, would be valid, if God did not
make them effective by his Spirit.

The reply of Calvin to Pighius is more cautious and
guarded than Luther's reply to Erasmus, and more churchly
than Zwingli's tract on Providence. In defending himself,
he defended what was then the common Protestant doctrine,
in opposition to the then prevailing Pelagianism in the
lioman Church. It had a good effect upon the Council of
Trent, which distinctly disowned the Pelagian and Semi-
Pelagian heresy.1

Calvin dedicated his book to Melanchthon, as a friend who
had agreed with him and had advised him to write against
Pighius, if he should attack the Reformation. But Melanch
thon, who had taught the same doctrine, wus at that time
undergoing a change in his views on the freedom of the will,
chiefly because he felt that the denial of it would make God
the author of sin, and destroy man's moral accountability.2
He was as competent to appreciate the logical argument in
favor of necessity, but he was more open to the force of
ethical and practical considerations. In his reply to Calvin's
dedication, May 11, 1543, he acknowledged the compliment
paid to him, but modestly and delicately intimated his dis
sent and his desire that Protestants should unite in the
defence of those more important doctrines, which commended
themselves by their simplicity and practical usefulness. " I
wish," he says, "you would transfer your eloquence to the
adorning of these momentous subjects, by which our friends
would be strengthened, our enemies terrified, and the weak
encouraged ; for who in these days possesses a more forcible

1 See the remarks of Schweizer on the value of this controversy, I.e., I. 198.

2 The successive changes are marked in the editions of his Loci Theologici,
1525, 1535, 1544, 1548. See above, p. 548.

§ 120. THE ANTI-PAPAL WRITINGS. 599

or splendid style of disputation? ... I do not write this
letter to dictate to you who are so learned a man, and so
well versed in all the exercises of piety. I am persuaded,
indeed, that it agrees with your sentiments, though less
subtle and more adapted for use." 1

Calvin intended to answer the second part of the work of
Pighius, but as he learned that he had died shortly before,
he did not wish " to insult a dead dog " (!), and applied
himself " to other pursuits." 2 But nine years afterwards he
virtually answered it in the Consensus G-enevensis (1552),
which may be considered as the second part of his refutation
of Pighius, although it was occasioned by the controversy
with Boise c.

§ 120. The Anti-Papal Writings. Criticism of the Council
of Trent. 1547.

I. Most of Calvin's anti-papal writings are printed in Opera, Tom. VI. (In

the Amsterdam ed., Tom. IX. 37-90; 99-335 and 409-485.) An English
translation in vols. I. and III. of Tracts relating to the Reformation by John
Calvin, translated from the original Latin by Henry Beveridge, Esq. Edin
burgh (Calvin Translation Society), 1844 and 1851.

II. Ada Si/nodi Tridentince cum antidoto. In Opera, VII. 365-506. Comp.
Schweizer, I. 239-249; Dyer, p. 229 sq. ; Stahelin, II. 255 sqq.

Calvin's anti-papal writings are numerous. Among them his
Answer to Cardinal Sadolet (1540), and his Plea for the Ne
cessity of the Reformation, addressed to Emperor Charles V.

1 " Et quidem scio, hcec cum tuis congruere, sed sunt Traxtrrepa, et ad usum
accommodata." He also refers to Basil's saying: pkvov fleArjo-ov, KO.\ Ofbs Trpoa-
TravTu. Calvin's Opera, XI. 539-542. Melanchthon's letters are usually inter
spersed with Greek words and sentences.

2 Cons. Geneu. : " Paulo post librum editum, moritur Pighius. Ergo ne cani
mortuo insuharem, ad alias lucubrationes me converti." He characterizes Pighius
as a " homo phrenetica plane audacia prceditus" because he attempted to estab
lish the freedom of man, and to overthrow the secret counsel of God, by which
he elects some to salvation and others to eternal ruin (altos ceterno exitio
destinat*). It is no excuse for Calvin's insulting language on a dead enemy
that St. Jerome- said of his former friend Rufinus : " The scorpion now lies
under ground ! " Among polemic theologians charity is a great rarity.

600 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

(1544), deserve the first place. They are superior in ability
and force to any similar works of the sixteenth century.
They have been sufficiently noticed in previous sections.1
I will only add the manly conclusion of the Plea to the
Emperor : —

"But be the issue what it may, we will never repent of having begun, and
of having proceeded thus far. The Holy Spirit is a faithful and unerring
witness to our doctrine. We know, I say, that it is the eternal truth of God
that we preach. We are, indeed, desirous, as we ought to be, that our min
istry may prove salutary to the world; but to give it this effect belongs to
God, not to us. If, to punish, partly the ingratitude, and partly the stubborn
ness of those to whom we desire to do good, success must prove desperate,
and all things go to worse, I will say what it befits a Christian man to say,
and what all who are true to this holy profession will subscribe : We will die,
but in death even be conquerors, not only because through it we shall have
a sure passage to a better life, but because we know that our blood will be as
seed to propagate the Divine truth, which men now despise."

Next to these books in importance is his criticism of the
Council of Trent, published in November, 1547.

The Council of Trent, which was to heal the divisions of
Western Christendom, convened after long delay, Dec. 13,
1545 ; then adjourned, convened again, and finally closed,
Dec. 4, 1563, a few months before Calvin's death. In the
fourth, fifth, and sixth sessions (1546), it settled the burning
questions of the rule of faith, original sin, and justification,
in favor of the present Roman system and against the views
of the Reformers. The Council avoided the ill-disguised
Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism of Eck, Pighius, and other
early champions of Rome, and worded its decrees with great
caution and circumspection ; but it decidedly condemned the
Protestant doctrines of the supremacy of the Bible, the
slavery of the natural will, and justification by faith alone.

Calvin was the first to take up the pen against these decis
ions. He subjected them to a searching criticism. He
admits, in the introduction, that a Council might be of great
use and restore the peace of Christendom, provided it be

1 See pp. 398-413 ; 452-466.

§ 120. THE ANTI-PAPAL WHITINGS. 601

truly oecumenical, impartial, and free. But he denies that
the Council of Trent had these essential characteristics.
The Greek and the Evangelical Churches were not repre
sented at all. It was a purely Roman Council, and under
the control of the pope, who was himself the chief offender,
and far more disposed to perpetuate abuses than to abolish
them. The members, only about forty, mostly Italians, were
not distinguished for learning or piety, but were a set of wran
gling monks and canonists and minions of the pope. They
gave merely a nod of assent to the living oracle of the
Vatican, and then issued the decrees as responses of the Holy
Spirit. "As soon as a decree is framed," he says, "couriers
flee off to Rome, and beg pardon and peace at the feet of
their idol. The holy father hands over what the couriers
have brought to his private advisers for examination. They
curtail, add, and change as they please. The couriers return,
and a sederunt is appointed. The notary reads over what
no one dares to disapprove, and the asses shake their ears in
assent. Behold the oracle which imposes religious obligations'
on the whole world. . . . The proclamation of the Council
is entitled to no more weight than the cry of an auctioneer."

Calvin dissects the decrees with his usual polemic skill.
He first states them in the words of the Council, and then
gives the antidote. He exposes the errors of the Vulgate,
which the Council put on a par with the original Hebrew
and Greek originals, and defends the supremacy of the Scrip
tures and the doctrine of justification by faith.

He wrote this work in two or three months, under constant
interruption, while Chemnitz took ten years to complete his.
He submitted the manuscript to Farel, who was delighted
with it. He published also a French edition in a more popu
lar form.

Cochlseus prepared, with much personal bitterness, a refu
tation of Calvin (1548), and was answered by Des Gallars,1

1 Apologia Calvini contra Cochlceum.

602 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

and Beza, Avho numbers Cochlaeus among the monsters of
the animal kingdom.1

After the close of the Council of Trent, Martin Chemnitz,
the leading divine of the Lutheran Church after the death
of Melanchthon, wrote his more elaborate Examen Concilii
Tridentini (1565-1573 ; second ed. 1585), which was for a
long time a standard work in the Roman controversy.

§ 121. Against the Grerman Interim. 1549.

Interim Adultero-Germanum : Cui adjecta est vera Christiana pacificationis et
ecclesuc reformandce ratio, per JOANNEM CALVINUM. Oavete a fermento
Pharisfc-orum, 1549. Opera, VII. 541-674. — It was reprinted in Germany,
and translated into French (1549) and Italian (1561). See HENRY, II.
369 sqq.; III. Beilage, 211 sq. ; DYER, 232 sq.

On the Interim, comp. the German Histories of RANKE (V. 25 sqq.) and
JANSSEN (III. 625 sqq.), and the monograph of LUDWIG PASTOR (Rom.
Cath.) : Die kirchlichen Rennionsbestrebungen wahrend der Regierung Karls
V. Freiburg, 1879, pp. 357 sqq.

Calvin's tract on the false German Interim is closely con
nected with his criticism of the Council of Trent. After
defeating the Smalkaldian League, the Emperor imposed on
the Protestants in Germany a compromise confession of
faith to be used till the final decision of the General Council.
It was drawn up by two Roman Catholic bishops, Pflug (an
Erasmian) and Helding, with the aid of John Agricola, the
chaplain of Elector Joachim II. of Brandenburg. Agricola
was a vain, ambitious, and unreliable man, who had once
been a secretary and table companion of Luther, but fell out
with him and Melanchthon in the Antinomian controversy.
He was suspected of having been bribed by the Catholics.2

The agreement was laid before the Diet of Augsburg, and

1 Srevis et utilis zoographia Joh. Cochlcei, 1549. Reprinted in Baum's Beza,
I. 357-363.

2 The Emperor presented him with fifty crowns ; King Ferdinand, with five
hundred thaler. Janssen, III. 625. Comp. G. Kawerau (a specialist in the
history of the Lutheran Reformation), Johann Agricola von Eisleben, Berlin,
1881.

§ 121. AGAINST THE GERMAN INTERIM. 1549. 603

is called the AUGSBURG INTERIM. It was proclaimed, with
an earnest exhortation, by the Emperor, May 15, 1548. It
comprehended the whole Roman Catholic system of doctrine
and discipline, but in a mild and conciliatory form, and
without an express condemnation of the Protestant views.
The doctrine of justification was stated in substantial agree
ment with that of the Council of Trent. The seven sacra
ments, transubstantiation, the mass, the invocation of the
saints, the authority of the pope, and all the important cere
monies, were to be retained. The only concession made to
the Protestants was the use of the cup by the laity in the holy
communion, and the permission for married priests to retain
their wives. The arrangement suited the views of the
Emperor, who, as Ranke remarks, wished to uphold the
Catholic hierarchy as the basis of his power, and yet to make
it possible for Protestants to be reconciled to him. It is very
evident that the adoption of such a confession was a virtual
surrender of the cause of the Reformation and would have
ended in a triumph of the papacy.

The Interim was received with great indignation by the
Protestants, and was rejected in Hesse, ducal Saxony, and
the Northern cities, especially in Madgeburg, which became
the headquarters of the irreconcilable Lutherans under the
lead of Flacius. In Southern Germany it was enforced with
great rigor by Spanish soldiers. More than four hundred
pastors in Swabia and on the Rhine were expelled from their
benefices for refusing the Interim, and wandered about with
their families in poverty and misery. Among them was
Brenz, the Reformer of Wiirtemburg, who fled to Basel,
where he received a consolitary letter from Calvin (Nov. 5,
1548). Martin Bucer, with all his zeal for Christian union,
was unwilling to make a compromise at the expense of his
conscience, and fled from Strassburg to England, where he
was appointed professor of divinity in the University of
Cambridge.

604 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

It was forbidden under pain of death to write against the
Interim. Nevertheless, over thirty attacks appeared from
the " Chancellery of God " at Magdeburg. Bullinger and
Calvin wrote against it.

Calvin published the imperial proclamation and the text
of the Interim in full, and then gave his reasons why it could
never bring peace to the Church. He begins with a quota
tion from Hilary in the Arian controversy : " Specious
indeed is the name of peace, and fair the idea of unity; but
who doubts that the only peace of the Church is that which
is of Christ ? " This is the key-note of his own exposition
on the true method of the pacification of Christendom.

Elector Maurice of Saxony, who stood between two fires,
— his Lutheran subjects and the Emperor, — modified the
Augsburg Interim, with the aid of Melanchthon and the
other theologians of Wittenberg, and substituted for it
the LEIPZIG INTERIM, Dec. 22, 1548. In this document the
chief articles of faith are more cautiously worded so as to
admit of an evangelical interpretation, but the Roman cere
monies are retained, as adiaphora, or things indifferent, which
do not compromise the conscience nor endanger salvation.
It gave rise to the Adiaphoristic Controversy between the
strict and the moderate Lutherans. Melanchthon was placed
in a most trying position in the midst of the contest. In the
sincere wish to save Protestantism from utter overthrow and
Saxony from invasion and desolation by imperial troops, he
yielded to the pressure of the courtiers and accepted the
Leipzig Interim in the hope of better times. For this con
duct he was severely attacked by Flacius, his former pupil,
and denounced as a traitor. When Calvin heard the news,
he wrote an earnest letter of fraternal rebuke to Melanch
thon, and reminded him of Paul's unyielding firmness at the
Synod of Jerusalem on the question of circumcision.1

1 Letter of July 18, 1550, quoted in § 90, pp. 395 sq. Dyer decidedly
defends Melanchthon in this adiaphoristic controversy, and makes the follow-

§ 122. AGAINST THE WORSHIP OF KELICS. 1543. 605

Protestantism in Germany was brought to the brink of
ruin, but was delivered from it by the treason of the Elector
Maurice. This shrewd, selfish politician and master in the
art of dissimulation, had first betrayed the Protestants, by
aiding the Emperor in the defeat of the Smalkaldian League,
whereby he gained the electorate ; and then he rose in rebellion
against the Emperor and drove him and the Fathers of Trent
out of Tyrol (1551). He died in 1553 of a deadly wound
which he received in a victorious battle against his old friend
Albrecht of Brandenburg.1

The final result of the defeat of the Emperor was the
Augsburg Treaty of Peace, 1555, which for the first time
gave to the Lutherans a legal status in the empire, though
with certain restrictions. This closes the period of the
Lutheran Reformation.

§ 122. Against the Worship of Relics. 1543.

Advertissement tres-utile du grand proffit qui reviendroit a la Chrestiente*, s'il se
faisoit inventoire de tous les corps sainctz et reliques, qui sont tant en Italic
qu'en France Allemaigne, Hespaigne, et autres Royaumes et Pays. Gen.,
1543, 1544, 1551, 1563, 1579, 1599. Reprinted in Opera, VI. 405-452.
A Latin edition by Nicolaus Gallasius (des Gallars) was published at
Geneva, 1548. It appeared also in English (A very profitable treatise,
etc.), London, 1561, and in two German translations (by Jakob Eysen-
berg of Wittenberg, 1557, etc., and by J. Fischart, 1584, or 1583, under
the title Der heilig Brotkorb der h. Rb'mischen Reliquien). See Henry, II.
333 and III., Appendix, 204-206. A new English translation by Beve-
ridge in Calvin's Tracts relating to the Reformation, Edinb., 1844, pp. 289-
341.

In the same year in which Calvin answered Pighius, he
published a French tract on Relics, which was repeatedly

ing remark (p. 240) : " What a prospect do these squabbles hold out for the
future union of the Protestant Church! A silly and scandalous, we had
almost said, a childish, quarrel about a surplice and a few minor ceremonies
divides the Protestants into hostile factions at the moment of their most emi
nent peril ! With such feelings, how should they hope in quieter times to
arrange those more serious questions, which turned on really important points
of doctrine ? "

1 For a description of the character of Moritz, see Ranke, Deutsche Ge-
schichte im Zeitalter der Reformation, vol. V. 160 sqq. (6th ed. 1881).

606 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

printed and translated. It was the most popular and effective
of his anti-papal writings. He indulged here very freely in
his power of ridicule and sarcasm, which reminds one almost
of Voltaire, but the spirit is altogether different. He begins
with the following judicious remarks, which best characterize
the book : —

" Augustin, in his work, entitled On the Labor of Monks, complaining of cer
tain itinerant impostors, who, as early as his day, plied a vile and sordid
traffic, by carrying the relics of martyrs about from place to place, adds, ' If,
indeed, they are relics of martyrs.' By this expression he intimates the prev
alence, even in his day, of abuses and impostures, by which the ignorant
populace were cheated into the belief that bones gathered here and there
were those of saints. While the origin of the imposture is thus ancient,
there cannot be a doubt that in the long period which has since elapsed, it
has exceedingly increased, considering, especially, that the world has since
been strangely corrupted, and has never ceased to become worse, till it has
reached the extreme wherein we now behold it.

"But the first abuse and, as it were, beginning of the evil was, that when
Christ ought to have been sought in his Word, sacraments, and spiritual
influences, the world, after its wont, clung to his garments, vests, and swad
dling-clothes; and thus overlooking the principal matter, followed only its
accessory. The same course was pursued in regard to apostles, martyrs, and
other saints. For when the duty was to meditate diligently on their lives,
and engage in imitating them, men made it their whole study to contemplate
and lay up, as it were in a treasury, their bones, shirts, girdles, caps, and
similar trifles.

"I am not unaware that in this there is a semblance of pious zeal, the
allegation being, that the relics of Christ are kept on account of the rever
ence which is felt for himself, and in order that the remembrance of him may
take a firmer hold of the mind. And the same thing is alleged with regard
to the saints. But attention should be paid to what Paul says, viz., that all
divine worship of man's devising, having no better and surer foundation than
his own opinion, be its semblance of wisdom what it may, is mere vanity and
folly.

"Besides, any advantage, supposed to be derived from it, ought to be
contrasted with the danger. In this way it would be discovered that the pos
session of such relics was of little use, or was altogether superfluous and
frivolous, whereas, on the other hand, it was most difficult, or rather impossi
ble, that men should not thereby degenerate into idolatry. For they cannot
look upon them, or handle them, without veneration ; and there being no
limit to this, the honor due to Christ is forthwith paid to them. In short,
a longing for relics is never free from superstition, nay, what is worse, it is
the parent of idolatry, with which it is very generally conjoined.

"All admit, without dispute, that God carried away the body of Moses
from human sight, lest the Jewish nation should fall into the abuse of wor-

§ 122. AGAINST THE WORSHIP OF RELICS. 1543. 607

shipping it. What was done in the case of one ought to be extended to all,
since the reason equally applies. But not to speak of saints, let us see what
Paul says of Christ himself. He declares, that after the resurrection of
Christ he knew him no more after the flesh, intimating by these words that
everything carnal which belonged to Christ should be consigned to oblivion
and be discarded, in order that we may make it our whole study and endeavor
to seek and possess him in spirit. Now, therefore, when men talk of it as a
grand thing to possess some memorial of Christ and his saints, what else is
it than to seek an empty cloak with which to hide some foolish desire that
has no foundation in reason ? But even should there seem to be a sufficient
reason for it, yet, seeing it is so clearly repugnant to the mind of the Holy
Spirit, as declared by the mouth of Paul, what more do we require ? "

The following is a summary of this tract : —
What was at first a foolish curiosity for preserving relics
has degenerated into abominable idolatry. The great ma
jority of the relics are spurious. It could be shown by com
parison that every apostle has more than four bodies and
every saint two or three. The arm of St. Anthony, which
was worshipped in Geneva, when brought out from the case,
turned out to be a part of a stag. The body of Christ could
not be obtained, but the monks of Charroux pretend to have,
besides teeth and hair, the prepuce or pellicle cut off in his
circumcision. But it is shown also in the Lateran church
at Rome. The blood of Christ which Nicodemus is said to
have received in a handkerchief or a bowl, is exhibited in
Rochelle, in Mantua, in Rome, and many other places. The
manger in which he laid at his birth, his cradle, together
with the shirt which his mother made, the pillar on which
he leaned when disputing in the Temple, the water-pots in
which he turned water into wine, the nails, and pieces of the
cross, are shown in Rome, Ravenna, Pisa, Cluny, Angers, and
elsewhere.

The table of the last Supper is at Rome, in the church of
St. John in the Lateran ; some of the bread at St. Salvador
in Spain ; the knife with which the Paschal Lamb was cut
up, is at Treves.1 What semblance of possibility is there that

1 The holy coat is still at Treves, and was worshipped by many thousands
of devout pilgrims in the year of our Lord 1891 !

608 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

that table was found seven or eight hundred years after?
Besides, tables were in those days different in shape from
ours, for people used to recline at meals. Fragments of the
cross found by St. Helena are scattered over many churches
in Italy, France, Spain, etc., and would form a good ship
load, which it would take three hundred men to carry instead
of one. But they say that this wood never grows less ! Some
affirm that their fragments were carried by angels, others
that they dropped down from heaven. Those of Poitiers say
that their piece was stolen by a maid-servant of Helena and
carried off to France. There is still a greater controversy
as to the three nails of the cross : one of them was fixed in
the crown of Constantine, the other two were fitted to his
horse's bridle, according to Theodoret, or one was kept by
Helena herself, according to Ambrose. But now there are
two nails at Rome, one at Siena, one at Milan, one at Car-
pentras, one at Venice, one at Cologne, one at Treves, two
at Paris, one at Bourges, etc. All the claims are equally
good, for the nails are all spurious. There is also more than
one soldier's spear, crown of thorns, purple robe, the seam
less coat, and Veronica's napkin (which at least six cities
boast of having). A piece of broiled fish, which Peter offered
to the risen Saviour on the seashore, must have been won-
drously well salted if it has kept for these fifteen centuries !
But, jesting apart, is it supposable that the apostles made
relics of what they had actually prepared for dinner ?

Calvin exposes with equal effect the absurdities and impie
ties of the wonder-working pictures of Christ ; the relics of
the hair and milk of the Virgin Mary, preserved in so many
places, her combs, her wardrobe and baggage, and her house
carried by angels across the sea to Loreto; the shoes of
St. Joseph ; the slippers of St. James ; the head of John the
Baptist, of which Rhodes, Malta, Lucca, Nevers, Amiens,
Besangon, and Noyon claim to have portions ; and his fingers,
one of which is shown at Besangon, another at Toulouse,

§ 123. THE ARTICLES OF THE SORBONNE. 1544. 609

another at Lyons, another at Bourges, another at Florence.
At Avignon they have the sword with which John was be
headed, at Aix-la-Chapelle the linen cloth placed under him
by the kindness of the executioner, in Rome his girdle and
the altar at which he said prayers in the desert. It is strange,
adds Calvin, that they do not also make him perform mass.

The tract concludes with this remark : " So completely are
the relics mixed up and huddled together, that it is impos
sible to have the bones of any martyr without running the
risk of worshipping the bones of some thief or robber, or, it
may be, the bones of a dog, or a horse, or an ass, or — Let
every one, therefore, guard against this risk. Henceforth no
man will be able to excuse himself by pretending ignorance."

§ 123. The Articles of the Sorbonne with an Antidote. 1544.

Articuli a facilitate s. theoL Parisiensi determinate super materiis fidei nostrce hodie
controversis. Cum Antidoto (1543), 1544. Opera, VII. 1-44. A French
edition appeared in the same year. English translation by Beveridge, in
Calvin's Tracts, I. 72-122.

The theological faculty of the University of Paris pub
lished, March 10, 1542, a summary of the most obnoxious
doctrines of the Roman Church, in twenty-five articles, which
were sanctioned by an edict of the king of France, and were
to be subscribed by all candidates of the priesthood.1

Calvin republished these articles, and accompanied each,
first with an ironical defence, and then with a scriptural
antidote. This reductio ad absurdum had probably more
effect in Paris than a serious and sober mode of refutation.
The following is a specimen : —

" ARTICLE VI. Or THE SACRIFICE or THE MASS.

" The sacrifice of the Mass is, according to the institution of Christ, available for

the living and the dead."

"Proof, — Because Christ says, 'This do.' But to do is to sacrifice,
according to the passage in Vergil : « When I will do (make an offering) with

1 Bulaeus, Historia Univ. Paris., VI. 384, and the French text in Opera, roL
VII., Proleg., pp. ix-xii.

610 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

a calf in place of produce, do you yourself come/1 As to which signification,
see Macrobius. But when the Lutherans deride that subtlety, because Christ
spoke with the Apostles in the common Hebrew or Syriac tongue, and the
Evangelists wrote in Greek, answer that the common Latin translation out
weighs them. And it is well known that the sense of Scripture must be
sought from the determination of the Church. But of the value of sacrifice
for the living and the dead we have proof from experience. For many visions
have appeared to certain holy monks when asleep, telling them that by means
of masses souls had been delivered from Purgatory. Nay, St. Gregory
redeemed the soul of Trajan from the infernal regions."2

"ANTIDOTE TO ARTICLE VI.

" The institution of Christ is, ' Take and eat' (Matt. 26 : 26 ; Mark 14 : 22;
1 Cor. 11 : 24), but not, offer. Therefore, sacrifice is not conformable to the
institution of Christ, but is plainly repugnant to it. Besides, it is evident
from Scripture that it is the peculiar and proper office of Christ to offer him
self ; as an apostle says, that by one offering he has forever perfected those
that are sanctified (Heb. 10 : 14). Also, that 'once, in the end of the world,
hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself (9 : 26). Also,
that after this sanctification, ' there remains no more a sacrifice for sins '
(10:26). For to this end also was he consecrated a priest after the order
of Melchisdec, without successor or colleague (Heb. 5:6; 7: 21).

" Christ, therefore, is robbed of the honor of the priesthood, when the right
of offering is transferred to others. Lastly, no man ought to assume this honor
unless called by God, as an apostle testifies. But we read of none having
been called but Christ. On the other hand, since the promise is destined for
those only who communicate in the sacrament, by what right can it belong
to the dead ? "

§ 124. Calvin and the Nicodemites. 1544.

CALVIN : Petit traicte" monstrant que c'est que doit fair e un homme fidele, cognois-
sant la verite de I'Evangile quand il est entre les papistes, 1543. Excuse de
IEHAN CALVIN a Messieurs les Nicode'mites, sur la complaincte qu'il font de sa
trop grand rigueur. (Excusatio ad Pseudo-Nicodemitas.') 1544. Embodied
in the tracts De vitandis superstitionibus quce cum sincera Jidei confessione
pugnant. Genevas, 1549, 1550, and 1551. This collection contains also

1 "'Hocfacite.' Facere autem est sacrijicare, justa illud Vergilii : ' Qitum
faciam vitula pro frugibus, ipse venito.'" (Verg. E. III. 77.)

'2 This refers to the mediaeval legend which has found its way into Dante's
Divina Comedia (Purg. X. 75; Par. XX. 109-111), that the Emperor Trajan,
nearly five hundred years after his death, was disinterred, and his soul trans
lated from hell to heaven by the prayers of Pope Gregory I., who had learned
that he was a just emperor, although he persecuted the Christians. But the
pope was punished for his interest in a heathen, and warned by an angel never
to make a similar request. Trajan is the only pagan in Dante's Paradise.

§ 124. CALVIN AND THE NICODEMITES. 1544. 611

the opinions of Melanchthon, Bucer, and Peter Martyr on the question
raised by the Nicodemites. Reprinted in Opera, VI. 537-644. A German
translation appeared at Herborn, 1588; an English translation by R.
Golding, London, 1548. See the bibliographical notes in HENRY, III. ;
Beilage, 208 sq. ; Proleg. to Opera, VI. pp. xxx-xxxiv; and La France
Protest., III. 584 sq. DYER, 187 sqq. STAHELIN, I. 542 sqq.

A great practical difficulty presented itself to the Protes
tants in France, where they were in constant danger of perse
cution. They could not emigrate en masse, nor live in peace
at home, without concealing or denying their convictions.
A large number were Protestants at heart, but outwardly
conformed to the Roman Church. They excused their con
duct by the example of Nicodemus, the Jewish Rabbi, who
came to Jesus by night.

Calvin, therefore, called them " Nicodemites," but with
this difference, that Nicodemus only buried the body of
Christ, after anointing it with precious aromatics ; while they
bury both his soul and body, his divinity and humanity, and
that, too, without honor. Nicodemus interred Christ when
dead, but the Nicodemites thrust him into the earth after he
has risen. Nicodemus displayed a hundred times more cour
age at the death of Christ than all the Nicodemites after his
resurrection. Calvin confronted them with the alternative of
Elijah : " How long halt ye between two opinions ? If the
Lord be God, follow him: if Baal, then follow him" (1 Kings
18 : 21). He advised them either to leave their country for
some place of liberty, or to absent themselves from idolatrous
worship, even at the risk of their lives. The glory of God
should be much dearer to us than this transitory life, which
is only a shadow.

He distinguished several classes of Nicodemites : first, false
preachers of the gospel, who adopt some evangelical doc
trines (meaning probably Gerard le Roux or Roussel, for
whom Margaret of Navarre had procured the bishopric of
Ole'ron) ; next, worldly people, courtiers, and refined ladies,
who are used to flattery and hate austerity ; then, scholars

612 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

and literary men, who love their ease and hope for gradual
improvement with the spread of education and intelligence ;
lastly, merchants and citizens, who do not wish to be inter
rupted in their avocations. Yet he was far from disowning
them as brethren because of their weakness. Owing to their
great danger they could better expect pardon if they should
fall, than he himself who lived in comparative security.

The Nicodemites charged Calvin with immoderate aus
terity. " Away with this Calvin ! he is too impolite. He
would reduce us to beggary, and lead us directly to the
stake. Let him content himself with his own lot, and leave
us in peace ; or, let him come to us and show us how to
behave. He resembles the leader of an army who incites the
common soldiers to the attack, but himself keeps out of the
reach of danger." To this charge he replied (in substance) :
" If you compare me with a captain, you should not blame
me for doing my duty. The question is not, what I would
do in your condition, but what is our present duty — yours
and mine. If my life differs from my teaching, then woe
to me. God is my witness that my heart bleeds when I
think of your temptations and dangers, and that I cease not
to pray with tears that you may be delivered. Nor do I
condemn always the persons when I condemn the thing.
I will not boast of superior courage, but it is not my fault,
if I am not more frequently in danger. I am not far from
the shot of the enemy. Secure to-day, I do not know what
shall be to-morrow. I am prepared for every event, and
I hope that God will give me grace to glorify him with my
blood as well as with my tongue and pen. I shall lay down
my life with no more sadness than I now write down these
words."

The French Protestants were under the impression that
Luther and Melanchthon had milder and more practicable
views on this subject, and requested Calvin to proceed to
Saxony for a personal conference. This he declined from

§ 124. CALVIN AND THE NICODEMITES. 1544. 613

want of time, since it would take at least forty days for the
journey from Geneva to Wittenberg and back. Nor had he
the means. uEven in favorable seasons," he wrote to an
unknown friend in France,1 "my income barely suffices
to meet expenses, and from the scarcity with which we had
to struggle during the last two years, I was compelled to run
into debt." He added that " the season was unfavorable for
consulting Luther, who has hardly had time to cool from the
heat of controversy." He thus missed the only opportunity
of a personal interview with Luther, who died a year later.
It is doubtful whether it would have been satisfactory. The
old hero was then discontented with the state of the world
and the Church, and longing for departure.

But Calvin prevailed on a young gentleman of tolerable
learning to undertake the journey for him. He gave him
a literal Latin translation of his tracts against the Nic ode-
mites, together with letters to Luther and Melanchthon (Jan.
20, 1545). He asked the latter to act as mediator according
to his best judgment. The letter to Luther is very respect
ful and modest. After explaining the case, and requesting
him to give it a cursory examination and to return his opin
ion in a few words, Calvin thus concludes this, his only,
letter to the great German Reformer : —

" I am unwilling to give you this trouble in the midst of so many weighty
and various employments; but such is your sense of justice that you cannot
suppose me to have done this unless compelled by the necessity of the case ;
I therefore trust that you will pardon me. Would that I could fly to you,
that I might even for a few hours enjoy the happiness of your society ; for
I would prefer, and it would be far better, not only upon this question, but
also about others, to converse personally with yourself ; but seeing that it
is not granted to us on earth, I hope that shortly it will come to pass in the
kingdom of God. Adieu, most renowned sir, most distinguished minister
of Christ, and my ever-honored father. The Lord himself rule and direct
you by His own Spirit, that you may persevere even unto the end, for the
common benefit and good of His own Church."

1 Bonnet (1. 418, note) conjectures that it was Louis du Chemin, or Frai^ois
Daniel.

614 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Luther was still so excited by his last eucharistic contro
versy with the Swiss, and so suspicious, that Melanchthon
deemed it inexpedient to lay the documents before him.1

"I have not shown your letter to Dr. Martin," he replied to Calvin, April
17, 1545, "for he takes many things suspiciously, and does not like his an
swers to questions of the kind you have proposed to him, to be carried round
and handed from one to another. ... At present I am looking forward to
exile and other sorrows. Farewell! On the day on which, thirty-eight hun
dred and forty-six years ago, Noah entered into the ark, by which God gave
testimony of his purpose never to forsake his Church, even when she quivers
under the shock of the billows of the great sea."

He gave, however, his own opinion ; and this, as well as the
opinions of Bucer and Peter Martyr, and Calvin's conclusion,
were published, as an appendix to the tracts on avoiding
superstition, at Geneva in 1549.2 Melanchthon substantially
agreed with Calvin ; he asserts the duty of the Christian to
worship God alone (Matt. 4 : 10), to flee from idols (1 John
5 : 21), and to profess Christ openly before men (Matt. 10 :
33) ; but he took a somewhat milder view as regards compli
ance with mere ceremonies and non-essentials. Bucer and
Peter Martyr agreed with this opinion. The latter refers to
the conduct of the early disciples, who, while holding worship
in private houses, still continued to visit the temple until
they were driven out.

We now proceed to Calvin's controversies with Protestant

opponents.

§ 125. Calvin and Bolsec.

I. Actes du proces intente par Calvin et les aittres ministres de Geneve a Jerome,
Bolsec de Paris (1551). Printed from the Register of the Venerable
Company and the Archives of Geneva, in Opera, VIII. 141-248. — CAL
VIN : De ceterna Dei Prcedestinatione, etc., usually called Consensus Gene-
vensis (1552) — chiefly an extract from the respective sections of his
Institutes; reprinted in Opera, VIII. 249-366. It is the second part of
his answer to Pighius ("the dead dog," as he calls him), but occasioned
by the process of Bolsec, whose name he ignores in contempt. — CALVIN'S
letter to Libertetus (Fabri of Neuchatel), January, 1552, in Opera, XIV.
278 eq. — The Letters of the Swiss Churches on the Bolsec affair,
reprinted in vol. VIII. 229 sqq. — BEZA : Vita Ca.lv. ad ann. 1551.

1 Opera, XII. 61. 2 Opera, VI. 617-644.

§ 125. CALVIN AND BOLSEC. 615

II. HIEROSME HERMES BOLSEC, docteur Medecin a Lyon : Histoire de la vie,
muurs, actes, doctrine, Constance et mort de Jean Calvin, jadis ministre de
Geneve, Lyon, 1577; Re'e'dite'e avec une introduction, des extraits de la vie
de Th, de Beze, par le meme, et des notes a I'appui par M. LOUIS-FRANQOIS
CHASTEL, magistral. Lyon, 1875 (xxxi and 328). On the character and
different editions of this book, see La France Protest., II. 755 sqq.

III. BAVLE: " Bolsec " in his "Diction, historique et critique." — F. TRECH-
SEL: Die Protest. Antitnnitarier (Heidelberg, 1844), Bd. I. 185-189 and
276-284. — HENRY, III. 44 sqq., and the second Beilage to vol. III., which
gives the documents (namely, the charges of the ministers of Geneva,
Bolsec's defence, his poem written in prison, the judgments of the
Churches of Bern and Zurich — all of which are omitted in the English
version, II. 130 sqq.). — AUDIN (favorable to Bolsec), ch. XXXIX.—
DYER, 265-283. — *SCH\VEIZER: Centraldogmen, I. 205-238. — STAHELIN,
I. 411-414; II. 287-292. — * La France Prot., sub "Bolsec," torn. II. 745-
776 (second ed.). Against this article: Lettre d'un protestant Genevois
aux lecteurs de la France Protestante, Geneve, 1880. In defence of that
article, HENRI L. BORDIER : L'e'cole historique de Jerome Bolsec, pour servir
de supple'ment a V article Bolsec de la France Protestante, Paris (Fisch-
bacher), 1880.

Hieronymus (Hierosme) Hermes Bolsec, a native of Paris,
was a Carmelite monk, but left the Roman Church, about
1545, and fled for protection to the Duchess of Ferrara, who
admitted him to her house under the title of an almoner.
There he married, and adopted the medical profession as
a means of livelihood. Ever afterwards he called himself
" Doctor of Medicine." He made himself odious by his
turbulent character and conduct, and was expelled by the
Duchess for some deception (as Beza reports).

In 1550 he settled at Geneva with his wife and a servant,
and practised his profession. But he meddled in theology,
and began to question Calvin's doctrine of predestination.
He denounced Calvin's God as a hypocrite and liar, as a
patron of criminals, and as worse than Satan. He was
admonished, March 8, 1551, by the Venerable Company, and
privately instructed by Calvin in that mystery, but without
success. On a second offence he was summoned before the
Consistory, and openly reprehended in the presence of fifteen
ministers and other competent persons. He acknowledged

616 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

that a certain number were elected by God to salvation, but
he denied predestination to destruction ; and, on closer exam
ination, he extended election to all mankind, maintaining
that grace efficacious to salvation is equally offered to all,
and that the cause, why some receive and others reject it, lies
in the free-will, with which all men were endowed. At the
same time he abhorred the name of merits. This, in the
eyes of Calvin, was a logical contradiction and an absurdity;
for, he says, "if some were elected, it surely follows that
others are not elected and left to perish. Unless we confess
that those who come to Christ are drawn by the Father
through the peculiar operation of the Holy Spirit on the
elect, it follows either that all must be promiscuously elected,
or that the cause of election lies in each man's merit."

On the 16th of October, 1551, Belsec attended the religious
conference, which was held every Friday at St. Peter's. John
de St. Andre* preached from John 8 : 47 on predestination,
and inferred from the text that those who are not of God,
oppose him to the last, because God grants the grace of
obedience only to the elect. Bolsec suddenly interrupted
the speaker, and argued that men are not saved because they
are elected, but that they are elected because they have faith.
He denounced, as false and godless, the notion that God
decides the fate of man before his birth, consigning some to
sin and punishment, others to virtue and eternal happiness.
He loaded the clergy with abuse, and warned the congrega
tion not to be led astray.

After he had finished this harangue, Calvin, who had
entered the church unobserved, stepped up to him and so
overwhelmed him, as Beza says, with arguments and with
quotations from Scripture and Augustin, that " all felt exceed
ingly ashamed for the brazen-faced monk, except the monk
himself." Farel also, who happened to be present, addressed
the assembly. The lieutenant of police apprehended Bolsec
for abusing the ministers and disturbing the public peace.

§ 125. CALVIN AND BOLSEC. 617

On the same afternoon the ministers drew up seventeen
articles against Bolsec and presented them to the Council,
with the request to call him to account. Bolsec, in his turn,
proposed several questions to Calvin and asked a categori
cal answer (October 25). He asserted that Melanchthon,
Bullinger, and Brenz shared his opinion.

The Consistory asked the Council to consult the Swiss
Churches before passing judgment. Accordingly, the Coun
cil sent a list of Bolsec's errors to Zurich, Bern, and Basel.
They were five, as follows : —

1. That faith depends not on election, but election on
faith.

2. That it is an insult to God to say that he abandons
some to blindness, because it is his pleasure to do so.

3. That God leads to himself all rational creatures, and
abandons only those who have often resisted him.

4. That God's grace is universal, and some are not more
predestinated to salvation than others.

5. That when St. Paul says (Eph. 1 : 5), that God has
elected us through Christ, he does not mean election to
salvation, but election to discipleship and apostleship.

At the same time Calvin and his colleagues addressed a
circular letter to the Swiss Churches, which speaks in offen
sive and contemptuous terms of Bolsec, and charges him with
cheating, deception, and impudence. Beza also wrote from
Lausanne to Bullinger.

The replies of the Swiss Churches were very unsatisfac
tory to Calvin, although the verdict was, on the whole, in
his favor. They reveal the difference between the German
and the French Swiss on the subject of divine decrees and
free-will. They assent to the doctrine of free election to
salvation, but evade the impenetrable mystery of absolute
and eternal reprobation, which was the most material point
in the controversy.

The ministers of Zurich defended Zwingli against Bolsec's

618 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

charge, that in his work on Providence he made God the
author of sin, and they referred to other works in which
Zwingli traced sin to the corruption of the human will.
Bullinger, in a private letter to Calvin, impressed upon him
the necessity of moderation and mildness. " Believe me,"
lie said, "many are displeased with what you say in your
Institutes about predestination, and draw the same conclusions
from it as Bolsec has drawn from Zwingli's book on Provi
dence.'' This affair caused a temporary alienation between
Calvin and Bullinger. It was not till ten years afterwards
that Bullinger decidedly embraced the Calvinistic dogma,
and even then he laid no stress 011 reprobation.1

Myconius, in the name of the Church of Basel, answered
evasively, and dwelt on what Calvin and Bolsec believed in
common.

The reply of the ministers of Bern anticipates the modern
spirit of toleration. They applaud the zeal for truth and
unity, but emphasize the equally important duty of charity
and forbearance. The good Shepherd, they say, cares for the
sheep that has gone astray. It is much easier to win a man
back by gentleness than to compel him by severity. As to
the awful mystery of divine predestination, they remind Calvin
of the perplexity felt by many good men who cling to the
Scripture texts of God's universal grace and goodness.

The effect of these letters was a milder judgment on
Bolsec. He was banished for life from the territory of
Geneva for exciting sedition and for Pelagianism, under pain
of being whipped if he should ever return. The judgment
was announced Dec. 23, 1551, with the sound of the trumpet.2

Bolsec retired to Thonon, in Bern, but as he created new
disturbances he was banished (1555). He left for France,

1 On Bullinger's views see above, pp. 210 sq., and Schweizer, I. 225, 255 sqq.

2 Beza : " Senatus . . . ilium turn ut seditiosum, turn ut mere Pelagianum
XXIII. Dec. publice damnatum urbe expulit, fnstuariam pcenam minatus, si rel
in urbe vel in urbis territorio esset deprehensus." Reg. of the Ven Comp. in
Anno/. 498: " Melerosme fut banni a son de trompe des terres de Geneve."

§ 125. CALVIN AND BOLSEC. 619

and sought admission into the ministry of the Reformed
Church, but returned at last to the Roman communion.1
He was classed by the national synod of Lyon among
deposed ministers, and characterized as "an infamous liar"
and "apostate" (1563). He lived near Lyon and at Autun,
and died at Annecy about 1584. Thirteen years after
Calvin's death he took mean and cowardly revenge by the
publication of a libellous " Life of Calvin," which injured him
much more than Calvin ; and this was followed by a slanderous
" Life of Beza," 1582. These books would long since have
been forgotten, had not partisan zeal kept them alive.2

The dispute with Bolsec occasioned Calvin's tract, " On
the Eternal Predestination of God," which he dedicated to
the Syndics and Council of Geneva, under the name of Con
sensus G-enevensis, or Agreement of the Genevese Pastors,
Jan. 1, 1552. But it was not approved by the other Swiss
Churches.

Beza remarks of the result of this controversy: "All that
Satan gained by these discussions was, that this article of the
Christian religion, which was formerly most obscure, became
clear and transparent to all not disposed to be contentious."

The quarrel with Bolsec caused the dissolution of the
friendship between Calvin and Jacques de Bourgogne, Sieur
de Falais et Bredam, a descendant of the dukes of Burgundy,
who with his wife, Jolunde de Brederode, a descendant of
the old counts of Holland, settled in Geneva, 1548, and lived
for some time in Calvin's house at his invitation, when the

1 According to Beza, Bolsec forsook his wife and allowed her to become a
prostitute to the canons of Autun.

2 Bayle said in his day: "Bolsec seroit un homme tout-a- fait plonge dans les
(e'nebres de I'oubli, s'il ne s'ctait rendu fameux par certains ouvrages satinques
[meaning his attacks on Calvin and Beza], que les moines et les missionnaires
client encore." In recent times Galiffe and Audin have come up to the defence
of Bolsec, but have been refuted by Henri L. Bordier in La France Protestante,
II. 766 sqq., and in L'dcole historique de Jerome Bolsec, Paris, 1880. Schweizer
(I. 207) calls those libels "ersonnene Verleumdungen, wie rechtschaffene Katho
liken Idngst zugeben, anderen aber gut genug zum Wiederabdrucken."

.620 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

wife of the latter was still living. His cook, Nicolas, served
Calvin as clerk. Calvin took the greatest interest in De
Falais, comforted him over the confiscation of his goods by
Charles V., at whose court he had been educated, and wrote
a defence for him against the calumnies before the emperor.1
He also dedicated to him his Commentary on the First Epis
tle to the Corinthians. His friendly correspondence from
1543 to 1852 is still extant, and does great credit to him.2
But De Falais could not penetrate the mysteries of theology,
nor sympathize with the severity of discipline in Geneva.
He was shocked at the treatment of Bolsec ; he felt indebted
to him as a physician who had cured one of his maid-servants
of a cancer. He interceded for him with the magistrates of
Geneva and of Bern. He wrote to Bullinger: "Not without
tears am I forced to see and hear this tragedy of Calvin."
He begged him to unite with Calvin for the restoration of
peace in the Church.

He left Geneva after the banishment of Bolsec and moved
to Bern, where he lost his wife (1557) and married again.
Bayle asserts, without authority, that in disgust at the
Protestant dissensions he returned to the Roman Church.3

Even Melanchthon was displeased with Calvin's conduct
in this unfortunate affair ; but the alienation was only super
ficial and temporary. Judging from the imperfect informa
tion of Ltelius Socinus, he was disposed to censure the
Genevese for an excess of zeal in behalf of the " Stoic doc
trine of necessity," as he called it, while he applauded the
Ziirichers for greater moderation. He expressed himself to

1 Apologia illustris D. Jacobi a Burgundia Fallesii Bredanique domini, qua
apud Iinperatoriam Majestatem inustas sibi criminationes diluit fideique suce con-
fessionem edit. In Opera, X. Ft. I. 269-294.

2 It was published at Amsterdam in a separate volume, 1774, and is
reprinted in the Opera and in the collection of Bonnet. Comp. on Calvin's
friendship with De Falais, Henry, III. 64-69; Stahelin, II. 293-302.

3 Bolsec, in his life of Calvin, invented, among other slanders, the story
that the real cause of De Falais' leaving Geneva was an attempt of Calvin on
the chastity of his wife !

§ 126. CALVIN AND CASTELLIO. 621

this effect in private letters.1 Socinus appealed to the judg
ment of Melanchthon in a letter to Calvin, and Calvin, in
his reply, could not entirely deny it. Yet, upon the whole,
Melanchthon, like Bullinger, was more on the side of Calvin,
and in the more important affair of Servetus, both unequivo
cally justified his conduct, which is now generally condemned
by Protestants.

§ 126. Calvin and Castellio.

I. CASTELLIO'S chief work is his Biblia sacra latina (Basil., 1551, 1554, 1555,
1556, 1572; the N. T. also at Amst., 1683, Leipz., 1760, Halle, 1776).
His French version is less important. He defended both against the
attacks of Beza (Defensio suarum translationum Bibliorum, Basil., 1562).
After the execution of Servetus, 1553, Castellio wrote several anonymous
or pseudonymous booklets against Calvin, and against the persecution of
heretics, which provoked the replies of Calvin and Beza (see below).
His views against predestination and the slavery of the will are best set
forth in his four Dialogi de prcedestinatione, de electione, de libero arbitrio,
de fide, which were published after his death at Basel, 1578, 1613, 1619,
and in English, 1679. See a chronological list of his numerous works in
La France Protestante, vol. IV. 126-141. I have before me (from the
Union Seminary Library) a rare volume : Sebastiani Castellionis Dialogi
IV., printed at Gouda in Holland anno 1613, which contains the four
Dialogues above mentioned (pp. 1-225)', Castellio's Defence against
Calvin's Adv. Nebulonem, his Annotations on the ninth ch. of Romans,
and several other tracts.

CALVIN : B rev is Responsio ad diluendas nebulonis cuiusdam calumnias quibus doc-
trinam de <eterna Dei pnvdestinatione fozdare conatus est, Gen. (1554), 1557.
In Opera, IX. 253-266. The unnamed nebulo (in the French ed. le broul-
lion} is Castellio. Calumnice nebulonis cujusdam adversus doctrinam Joh.
Calvini de occulta Dei providentia. Johannis Calvini ad easdem responsio,
Gen., 1558. In Opera, IX. 269-318. In this book Castellio's objections
to Calvin's predestinarian system are set forth in twenty -four theses, with

1 He wrote to Caspar Peucer, his son-in-law, Feb. 1, 1552 : " Lelius mihi
scribit, tanta esse Genevce certamina de Stoica necessitate, ut carceri inclusus sit
quidam \_Dohec\ a Zenone [Calvino] dissentiens. 0 rem miseram ! Doctrina
sa/utaris obscuratur peregrinis disputationibus." Mel.'s Opera (Corp. /?e/*.), vol.
VII. 932. To his friend Camerarius he wrote, under the same date, Feb. 1,
1552 (VII. 930) : " Hie Polonus a Lelio accepit literas. . . . Ac vide seculi
furores, certamina Allobrogica [Genevensia] de Stoica necessitate tanta sunt, ut
carceri inclusus sit quidam, qui a Zenone dtssent.it. Leh'us narrat, se Kopv<paicf>
cuidam \_Calvino~\ scripsisse, ne tain vehementer pugnet, Et mitiores sunt Tigurini."

622 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

a defence, and then answered by Calvin. The first thesis charges Calvin
with teaching: " Deus maximam mundi partem nudo puroque voluntatis suce
aibitric creacit ad perditionem." Thes. V.: " Nullum adulteriuin, J'urtum,
homicidium coinmittititr, quin Dei voluntas intercedat."

BEZA : Ad Seb. Castellionis calumnias, quibus unicum salutis nostrcz fundamentum,
i.e. ceternam Dei prcedestinationem evertere nititur, responsio^ Gen., 1558. In
his Tractat. theol. I. 337-423 (second ed. Geneva, 1582).

II. BAYLE : Castalion in Lis " Diet. hist, et crit." — JOH. C. FUSSLIN : Lebensge-
schickte Seb. Castellio's. Frankf. and Leipzig, 1776. — F. TRECHSEL: Die
protest. Antitrinitarier, vol. I. (1839), pp. 208-214. — C. RICH. BRENNER:
Essai sur la vie et les e'crits de Se'b. Chatillon, 1853. — HENRY : II. 383 sqq. ;
III. 88 sqq.; and Beilage, 28-42. — * ALEX. SCHWEIZER : Centraldogmen,
I. 310-356 ; and Sebastian Castellio ah Bekdmpfer der Calvinischen Prddes-
tinationslehre, in Baur's "Theol. Jahrbiicher" for 1851. — STAHELIN, I.
377-381; II. 302-308. — JACOB MAEHLY : Seb. Castellio, ein biographfscJier
Versuch, Basel, 1862. — JULES BONNET: Se'b. Chatillion on la tolerance an
XVP siecle, in the "Bulletin de la Societe de 1'hist. du protest, franc.ais,"
Nos. XVI. and XVII., 1867 and 1868. —EM. BROSSOUX : Se'b. Chasteillon,
Strasbourg, 1867. — B. RIGGENBACH, in Herzog2, III. 160 sqq. — LUTTE-
ROTII : Castallion in Lichtenberger, II. 672-677. — *L,v FRANCE PROTES-
TANTE (2d ed.) : Chateillon, torn. IV. 122-142. — * FERD. Buissoy : Sebas-
tien Castellion, Paris, 1802, 2 vols.

Castellio was far superior to Bolsec as a scholar and a man,
and lived in peace with Calvin until differences of opinion
on predestination, free-will, the Canticles, the descent into
Hades, and religious toleration made them bitter enemies.
In the heat of the controversy both forgot the dignity and
moderation of a Christian scholar.

Sebastian Castellio or Castalio was born at Chatillon in
Savoy, in 1515, six years after Calvin, of poor and bigoted
parents.1 He acquired a classical and biblical education by
hard study. He had a rare genius for languages, and mas
tered Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. In 1540 he taught Greek
at Lyons, and conducted the studies of three noblemen.
He published there a manual of biblical history under the

1 His French name is Bastien de Chatillon or Chateillon. He assumed, not
without vanity, the classical name Castalio with allusion to the Castalian
fountain at the foot of Parnassus. The usual spelling is Castellio. His pre
cise origin is uncertain. He was either a Frenchman or a Savoyard. He was
numbered with the liberal anti-calvinistic Italians, and charged with using a
corrupt French dialect. See Bayle, I.e., and Schweizer, I. 311.

§ 126. CALVIN AND CASTELLIO. 623

title Dialogi sacri, which passed through several editions
in Latin and French from 1540 to 1731. He wrote a Latin
epic on the prophecies of Jonah ; a Greek epic on John the
Baptist, which greatly delighted Melanchthon ; two versions
of the Pentateuch, with a view to exhibit Moses as a master
in all the arts and sciences ; a translation of the Psalms, and
other poetic portions of the Old Testament.

These works were preparatory to a complete Latin transla
tion of the Bible, which he begun at Geneva, 1542, and fin
ished at Basel, 1551. It was dedicated to King Edward VI.
of England, and often republished with various improve
ments. He showed some specimens in manuscript to Calvin,
who disapproved of the style. His object was to present
the Bible in classical Latinity according to the taste of the
later humanists and the pedantic Ciceronianism of Cardinal
Bembo. He substituted classical for biblical terms ; as lotio
for baptismus, genius for angelus, respublica for ecclesia, colle
gium for synagoge, senatus for presbyterium, furiosi for dcemo-
niaci. He sacrificed the contents to style, obliterated the
Hebraisms, and weakened the realistic force, the simplicity
and grandeur of the biblical writers. His translation was
severely criticised by Calvin and Beza as tending to secu
larize and profane the sacred book, but it was commended as
a meritorious work by such competent judges as Melanch
thon and Richard Simon. Castellio published also a French
version of the Bible with notes (1555), but his French was
not nearly as pure and elegant as his Latin, and was severely
criticised by Beza. He translated portions of Homer, Xeno-
phon, the Dialogues of Ochino, and also two mystical books,
the Theologia G-ermanica (1557), and, in. the last year of
his life, the Imiiatio Christi of Thomas a Kempis, — " e latino
in latinum" that is, from monkish into classical Latin, —
omitting, however, the fourth book.

Castellio was a philologist and critic, an orator and poet,
but not a theologian, and unable to rise to the lofty height

624 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

of Calvin's views and mission. His controversial tracts are full
of bitterness. He combined a mystical with a sceptical ten
dency.1 He was an anachronism ; a rationalist before Rational
ism, an advocate of religious toleration in an age of intolerance.

Castellio became acquainted with Calvin at Strassburg, and
lived with him in the same house (1540). Calvin appre
ciated his genius, scholarship, and literary industry, and, on
his return to Geneva, he secured for him a call as rector of
the Latin school at a salary of four hundred and fifty florins
(November, 1541), in the place of his old teacher, Maturin
Cordier. He treated him at first with marked kindness and
forbearance. In 1542, when the pestilence raged, Castellio
offered to go to the hospital, but he was either rejected as
not qualified, not being a minister, or he changed his mind
when the lot fell on him.2

Early in the year 1544, Castellio took offence at some of
Calvin's theological opinions, especially his doctrine of pre
destination. He disliked his severe discipline and the one-
man-power. He anticipated the rationalistic opinion on the
Song of Solomon, and described it as an obscene, erotic poem,
which should be stricken out of the canon.3 He also objected
to the clause of Christ's descent into Hades in the Apostles'
Creed, or rather to Calvin's figurative explanation of it, as
being a vicarious foretaste of eternal pain by Christ on the
cross.4 For these reasons Calvin opposed his ordination,

1 Stahelin (II. 303) calls him "em rationalistischer Gefuhlstheologe mit ausge-
prdgt ffisthetischem Anstrich."

2 The latter is Beza's explanation, Vita Calv. in AnnaL, Opera, XXI. 134.

8 " Carmen obscoenum et lascivum, quo Salomo impudicos suos amores descrip~
serit." Comp. Beg. du Conseil, Jan. 28, 1544, in AnnaL 329.

4 Calvin, in his catechism, explains the descensus ad inferos to mean the
suffering of the " dolores mortis" (Acts 2:24) or " horribiles angustias" on the
cross in behalf of the elect. This unhistorical exposition passed into the Hei
delberg Catechism, Quaest. 44: "Christ, my Lord, by his inexpressible anguish,
pains, and terrors, which he suffered in his soul on the cross and before, has
redeemed me from the anguish and torment of hell." The true meaning of
the clause is, that the descent was an event which took place between the
death and the resurrection of Christ. Corny). 1 Pet. 3: 19; 4:6; Eph. 4:9.

§ 126. CALVIN AND CASTELLIO. 625

but recommended an increase of his salary, which the Coun
cil refused, with the direction that he should keep better
discipline in the school.1 He also gave him an honorable
public testimony when he wished to leave Geneva, and
added private letters of recommendation to friends. Cas-
tellio went to Lausanne, but soon returned to Geneva. In
April, 1544, he asked the Council to continue him in his
position for April, May, and June, which was agreed to.2

In a public discussion on some Scripture text in the weekly
congregation at which about sixty persons were present,
May 30, 1544, he eulogized St. Paul and drew an unfavorable
contrast between him and the ministers of Geneva, charging
them with drunkenness, impurity, and intolerance. Calvin
listened in silence, but complained to the Syndics of this con
duct.3 Castellio was summoned before the Council, which,
after a patient hearing, found him guilty of calumny, and
banished him from the city.4

He went to Basel, where the liberal spirit of Erasmus had
not yet died out. He lived there several years in great
poverty till 1553, when he obtained a Greek professorship
in the University. That University was the headquarters
of opposition to Calvinism. Several sceptical Italians gath
ered there. Fr. Hotoman wrote to Bullinger : " Calvin is no
better spoken of here than in Paris. If one wishes to scold
another, he calls him a Calvinist. He is most unjustly and
immoderately assailed from all quarters." 5

In the summer of 1554, an anonymous letter was addressed
to the Genevese with atrocious charges against Calvin, who
suspected that it was written by Castellio, and complained

1 See Reg. du Conseil, Jan. 14, 1544, quoted in Annal. 328.

2 Extract from Reg. du Conseil, April 12, 1544, in Annal. 333.
8 May 31, Annal. 336.

4 This is the report of Beza : " ex urbe excedere jussus est " ; but Castellio
seems to have remained in Geneva till July 14. See Reg. du Conseil^ in Annal.
340.

6 Trechsel, Antitrinitarier, I. 219; Stahelin, II. 304.

626 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

of it to Antistes Sulzer of Basel; but Castellio denied the
authorship before the Council of Basel. About the same
time appeared from the same anonymous source a malignant
tract against Calvin, which collected his most obnoxious
utterances on predestination, and was sent to Paris for
publication to fill the French Protestants, then struggling
for existence, with distrust of the Reformer (1555). Calvin
and Beza replied with much indignation and bitterness, and
heaped upon the author such epithets as dog, slanderer, cor-
rupter of Scripture, vagabond, blasphemer. Calvin, upon
insufficient information, even charged him with theft. Cas
tellio, in self-defence, informs us that, with a large family
dependent on him, he was in the habit of gathering drift
wood on the banks of the Rhine to keep himself warm, and
to cook his food, while working at the completion of his trans
lation of the Scriptures till midnight. He effectively replied
to Calvin's reproachful epithets : " It ill becomes so learned
a man as yourself, the teacher of so many others, to degrade
so excellent an intellect by such foul and sordid abuse."

Castellio incurred the suspicion of the Council of Basel by
his translation of Ochino's Dialogues, which contained opin
ions favorable to Unitarianism and polygamy (1563). He
defended himself by alleging that he acted not as judge,
but only as translator, for the support of his family. He
was warned to cease meddling with theology and to stick
to philology.

He died in poverty, Dec. 29, 1563, only forty-eight years
old, leaving four sons and four daughters from two wives.
Calvin saw in his death a judgment of God, but a few months
afterwards he died himself. Even the mild Bullinger ex
pressed satisfaction that the translator of Ochino's dangerous
books had left this world.1 Three Polish Socinians, who

1 He wrote to Zanchi at Chiavenna, March 17, 1504 : " Optimefactum, quod
Basilece. mortuus est Castellio." Quoted by Trechsel, I. 214, from the Simler
Collection in Zurich.

§ 126. CALVIN AND CASTELLIO. 627

happened to pass through Basel, were more merciful than
the orthodox, and erected to Castellio a monument in the
cloister adjoining the minster. Faustus Socinus edited his
posthumous works. The youngest of his children, Frederic
Castellio, acquired some distinction as a philologist, orator,
musician, and poet, and was appointed professor of Greek,
and afterwards of rhetoric, in Basel.

Castellio left no school behind him, but his writings exerted
considerable influence on the development of Socinian and
Arminian opinions. He opposed Calvinism with the same
arguments as Pighius and Bolsec, and charged it with
destroying the foundations of morality and turning God
into a tyrant and hypocrite. He essentially agreed with
Pelagianism, and prepared the way for Socinianism.

He differed also from Calvin on the subject of persecution.
Being himself persecuted, he was one of the very few advo
cates of religious toleration in opposition to the prevailing
doctrine and practice of his age. In this point also he sym
pathized with the Unitarians. After the execution of Serve-
tus and Calvin's defence of the same, there appeared, under
the false name of Martinus Bellius, a book against the theory
of religious persecution, which was ascribed to Castellio.1 He
denied the authorship. He had, however, contributed to it
a part under the name of Basilius (Sebastian) Montfortius
(Castellio). The pseudo-name of Martinus Bellius, the
editor who wrote the dedicatory preface to Duke Christopher
of Wiirttemberg (the protector of Vergerius), has never been
unmasked. The book is a collection of judgments of differ
ent writers against the capital punishment of heretics.

1 De hareticis an sint perseqnendi, et oinnino qnomodo sit cum eis agendum,
doctorum virorum tnm veterum turn recentiorum sententiie. Liber hoc tarn turbulento
tempore pernecessdrius. Sfaydeburgi, per Georg. Rausch, 1554, mense martio,
173 pp. 8°. I copy the title of the book (which I have not seen) from La
France Prot., IV. 130. The writer of this article and Baum attribute the
book to Castellio, but Schweizer, I. 315 sq., shows that he wrote only a part
of it. Comp. Buisson, I.e., I. 358 sqq., and II. 1 sqq.

628 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Calvin and Beza were indignant, and correctly ascribed the
book to a secret company of Italian " Academic!," - - Lselius
Socinus, Curio, and Castellio. They also suspected that
Magdeburg, the alleged place of publication, was Basel, and
the printer an Italian refugee, Pietro Perna.

Castellio wrote also a tract, during the Huguenot wars in
France, 1562, in which he defended religious liberty as the
only remedy against religious wars.1

§ 127. Calvinism and Unitarianism. The Italian Refugees.

Comp. §§ 38-40 (pp. 144-163).

I. CALVIN: Ad questiones G-eorgii Blandatrce responsum (1558); Responsum ad

Fratres Polonos quomodo mediator sit Christus ad refutandum Stancari erro-
rem (1560); Impietas Valentini G-entilis detecta et palam traducta qui Chris
tum non sine sacrilega blasphemia Deum essentiatum esse Jingit (1561) ;
Brevis admonitio ad Fratres Polonos ne triplicem in Deo essentiam pro tribus
personis imaginando tres sibi Deos fabricent (1563); Epistola Jo. Calv. quo
fidem Admonition) s ab eo nuper editor apud Polonos confirmat (1563). All
in Opera, Tom. IX. 321 sqq. The correspondence of Calvin with Lelio
Sozini and other Italians, see below. On the controversy with Servetus,
see next chapter.
The Socinian writings are collected in the Sibliotheca fratrnm Polonorum quos

Unitarios vocant, Irenopoli (Amsterdam), 1656 sqq., 8 vols in 11 tomes fol.

it contains the writings of the younger Socinus and his successors (Schlieh-

ting, Crell, etc.).

II. TRECHSEL : Die Protestantischen Antitrinitarier, Heidelberg, 1839 and 1844,
2 vols. The first volume treats chiefly of Servetus ; the second, of the
Italian Antitrinitarians. — OTTO FOCK : Der Socinianismus, Kiel, 1847.
(The first part contains the history, the second and more valuable part
the system, of Socinianism.) — SCHWEIZER: Die Protest. Centraldogmen
(Zurich, 1854), vol. I. 293 sqq.— HENRY, III. 276 sqq. — DYER, 446 sqq.
— STAHELIN, II. 319 sqq. — L. COLIGNY : L'Antitrinitarianism a Geneve an
temps de Calvin. Geneve, 1873. — HARNACK : Dogmengeschichte, III.
(1890) 653-691. Comp. SAND: Sibliotheca Antitrinitariorum, 1684.

The Italian Protestants who were compelled to flee from
the Inquisition, sought refuge in Switzerland, and organized
congregations under native pastors in the Grisons, in Zurich,

1 " Conseil a la France de'sole'e, auquel est montre'e la cause de la guerre pre'sente
et le remede qui y pourroit etre mis, et principalement est avise" si on doit forcer les
consciences." The writer in La France Prot., IV. 135-138, gives large extracts
from this exceedingly rare tract. See also Buisson, II. 225 sqq.

§ 127. CALVINISM AND UNITARIANISM. 629

and Geneva. A few of them gathered also in Basel, and
associated there with Castellio and the admirers of Erasmus.1

An Italian Church was organized at Geneva in 1542,
and reorganized in 1551, under Galeazzo Caraccioli, Marquis
of Vico. Its chief pastors were Ragnione, Count Martinengo
(who died 1557), and Balbani.

Among the 279 fugitives who received the rights of citi
zenship in that city on one day of the year 1558, there were
200 Frenchmen, 50 Englishmen, 25 Italians, and 4 Spaniards.

The descendants of the refugees gradually merged into
the native population. Some of the best families in Geneva,
Zurich, and Basel still bear the names and cherish the mem
ories of their foreign ancestors. In the valleys of Poschiavo
and Bregaglia of the Grisons, several Protestant Italian con
gregations survive to this day.2

The Italian Protestants were mostly educated men, who
had passed through the door of the Renaissance to the
Reformation, or who had received the first impulse from the
writings of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin. We must distin
guish among them two classes, as they were chiefly influenced
either by religious or intellectual motives. Those who had
experienced a severe moral struggle for peace of conscience,
became strict Calvinists ; those who were moved by a desire
for freedom of thought from the bondage of an exclusive
creed, sympathized more with Erasmus than with Luther and
Calvin, and had a tendency to Unitarianism and Pelagianism.
Zanchi warned Bullinger against recommending Italians for
sound doctrine until lie had ascertained their views on God
and on original sin. The same national characteristics con
tinue to this day among the Romanic races. If Italians,
Frenchmen, or Spaniards cease to be Romanists, they are apt
to become sceptics and agnostics. They rarely stop midway.

1 Henry, II. 422 ; Schweizer, I. 293.

a On the Italian refugees in the Grisons, and in Zurich, see above, §§ 38,
39, and 40; and Trechsel, I.e., II. 64 sqq.

630 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

The ablest, most learned, and most worthy representatives
of orthodox Calvinism among the converted Italians were
Peter Martyr Vermigli of Florence (1500-1562), who became,
successively, professor at Strassburg (1543), at Oxford
(1547), and last at Zurich (1555), and his younger friend,
Jerome Zanchi (1516-1590), who labored first in the Grisons,
and then as professor at Strassburg (1553) and at Heidelberg
(1568). Calvin made several ineffectual attempts to secure
both for the Italian congregation in Geneva.1

The sceptical and antitrinitarian Italians were more numer
ous among the scholars. Calvin aptly called them " sceptical
Academicians." They assembled chiefly at Basel, where
they breathed the atmosphere of Erasmian humanism.
They gave the Swiss Churches a great deal of trouble. They
took offence at the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, which
they misconstrued into tritheism, or Sabellianism, at the
orthodox Christology of two natures in one person, and at
the Calvinistic doctrines of total depravity and divine pre
destination, which they charged with tending to immorality.
They doubted the right of infant baptism, and denied the
real presence in the Eucharist. They hated ecclesiastical
discipline. They admired Servetus, and disapproved of his
burning. They advocated religious toleration, which threat
ened to throw everything into confusion.

To this class belong the two Sozini, — uncle and nephew,
— Curio, Ochino (in his latter years), Renato, Gribaldo,
Biandrata, Alciati, and Gentile. Castellio is also counted
with these Italian sceptics. He thoroughly sided with their
anti-Calvinism, and translated from the Italian manuscripts
into Latin the last books of Ochino.

1 See above, pp. 156 and 162, and C. Schmidt, Peter ^fartt/r Vermigli. Leben
und ausgewtihlte Schriften, Elberfeld, 1858 (p. 296). Vergerio, the former
bishop of Capo d'Istria and papal nuncio, is also numbered among the ortho
dox Italians, but he had no settled opinions, and was no theologian in the
proper sense. See above, § 38, pp. 144 sqq. E. Tremellio, a converted Jew
of Ferrara (1510-1580), one of the most learned Orientalists, was a Calvinist.

§ 127. CALVINISM AND UNITAKIAXISM. 631

Thus the seeds for a new and heretical type of Protestant
ism were abundantly sown by these Italian refugees in the
soil of the Swiss Churches, which had received them with
open-hearted hospitality.

Fausto Sozini (1539-1604) formulated the loose heterodox
opinions of this school of sceptics into a theological system,
and organized an ecclesiastical society in Poland, where they
enjoyed toleration till the Jesuitical reaction drove them
awav. Poland was the Northern home of the Italian Renais
sance. Italian architects built the great churches and palaces
in Cracow, Warsaw, and other cities, and gave them an Italian
aspect. Fausto Sozini spent some time in Lyons, Zurich
(where he collected the papers of his uncle), and Basel, but
labored chiefly in Poland, and acquired great influence with
the upper classes by his polished manners, amiability, and
marriage with the daughter of a nobleman. Yet he was once
mobbed by fanatical students and priests at Cracow, who
dragged him through the streets and destroyed his library.
He bore the persecution like a philosopher. His writings
were published by his nephew, Wiszowaty, in the first two
volumes of the Bibliotheca fratrum Polonorum, 1656.

This is not the place for a full history of Socinianism.
We have only to do with its initiatory movements in Switz
erland, and its connection with Calvin. But a few general
remarks will facilitate an understanding.

Socinianism, as a system of theology, has largely affected
the theology of orthodox Protestantism on the Continent
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and was
succeeded by modern Unitarianism, which has exerted con
siderable influence on the thought and literature of England
and America in the nineteenth century. It forms the extreme
left wing of Protestantism, and the antipode to Calvinism.
The Socinians admitted that Calvinism is the only logical
system on the basis of universal depravity and absolute fore
knowledge and foreordination ; but they denied these pvo-

632 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

mises, and taught moral ability, free-will, and, strange to say,
a limitation of divine foreknowledge. God foreknows and
foreordains only the necessary future, but not the contingent
future, which depends on the free-will of man. The two
systems are therefore directly opposed in their theology and
anthropology.

And yet there is a certain intellectual and moral affinity
between them ; as there is between Lutheranism and Ration
alism. It is a remarkable fact that modern Unitarianism has
grown up in the Calvinistic (Presbyterian and Independent)
Churches of Geneva, France, Holland, England, and New
England, while Rationalism has been chiefly developed in
Lutheran Germany. But the reaction is also found in those
countries.

The Italian and Polish Socinians took substantially the
same ground as the English and American Unitarians. They
were opposed alike to Romanism and Calvinism ; they
claimed intellectual freedom of dissent and investigation as a
right ; they elevated the ethical spirit of Christianity above the
dogmas, and they had much zeal for higher liberal education.
But they differ on an important point. The Socinians had a
theological system, and a catechism; the modern Unitarians
refuse to be bound by a fixed creed, and are independent in
church polity. They allow more liberty for new departures,
either in the direction of rationalism and humanitarianism, or
in the opposite direction of supernaturalism and trinitarianism.

Calvin was in his early ministry charged with Arianism
by a theological quack (Caroli), because he objected to the
damnatory clauses of the pseudo-Athanasian creed, and
expressed once an unfavorable opinion on the Nicene Creed.1
But his difficulty was only with the scholastic or metaphysi
cal terminology,2 not with the doctrine itself ; and as to the

1 As a, "carmen cantillando magis aptum, gnam confessionis formula." In his
tract De vera Ecclesice reformatione. Comp. § 82, pp. 351 sq.

2 ovaia, virdaraffis, Trpoffwirov, essentia, substantia, persona, etc., and other
terms of the Nicene age.

§ 128. CALVIN AND LJELIUS SOCLNUS. 633

divinity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, he was most
emphatic.

It is chiefly due to Calvin's and Bullinger's influence that
Unitarianism, which began to undermine orthodoxy, and to
unsettle the Churches, was banished from Switzerland. It
received its death-blow in the execution of Servetus, who
was a Spaniard, but the ablest and most dangerous antitrini-
tarian. His case will be discussed in a special chapter.

§ 128. Calvin and Lcelius Socinus.

F. TRECHSEL (pastor at Vechingen, near Bern) : Die protest. Antitrinitarier
vor Faustus Socinus nach den Quellen und Urkunden geschichtlich dargesteitt.
Heidelberg, 1839, 18-44. The first part of this learned work, drawn in
part from manuscript sources, is devoted to Michael Servetus and his
predecessors ; the second part to Lelio Sozini and his sympathizing con
temporaries. The third section of vol. II. 137-201, with documents in
the Appendix, pp. 431-459, treats of Lelio Sozini. — HENRY, II. 484 sqq. ;
III. 440, Beilage, 128.— DYER, 251 (very brief).

Lselius Socinus, or Lelio Sozini, of Siena (1525-1562), son
of an eminent professor of law, was well educated, and
carried away by the reform movement in his early youth.
He voluntarily separated from the Roman Church, in 1546,
at the sacrifice of home and fortune. He removed to Chia-
venna in 1547, travelled in Switzerland, France, England,
Germany, and Poland, leading an independent life as a stu
dent, without public office, supported by the ample means
of his father. He studied Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic with
Pellican and Bibliander at Zurich and with Foster at Witten
berg, that he might reach " the fountain of the divine law "
in the Bible. He made Zurich his second home, and died
there in the prime of early manhood, leaving his unripe
doubts and crude opinions as a legacy to his more gifted
and famous nephew, who gave them definite shape and form.

Lselius was learned, acute, polite, amiable, and prepossess
ing. He was a man of affairs, better fitted for law or diplo-
aiacy than for theology. He was constitutionally a sceptic,

634 THE REFORMATION IK FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

of the type of Thomas: an honest seeker after truth; too
independent to submit blindly to authority, and yet too
religious to run into infidelity. His scepticism stumbled
first at the Roman Catholic, than at the Protestant ortho
doxy, and gradually spread over the doctrines of the resurrec
tion, predestination, original sin, the trinity, the atonement,
and the sacraments. Yet he remained in respectful connec
tion with the Reformers, and communed with the congre
gation at Zurich, although he thought that the Consensus
Tigurinus attributed too much power to the sacrament. He
enjoyed the confidence of Bullinger and Melanchthon, who
treated him with fatherly kindness, but regarded him better
fitted for a secular calling than for the service of the Church.
Calvin also was favorably impressed with his talents and
personal character, but displeased with his excessive " inquis-
itiveness." l

L. Socinus came to Geneva in 1548 or 1549, seeking
instruction from the greatest divine of the age. He opened
his doubts to Calvin with the modesty of a disciple. Soon
afterwards he addressed to him a letter from Zurich, asking
for advice on the questions, whether it was lawful for a
Protestant to marry a Roman Catholic ; whether popish
baptism was efficacious ; and how the doctrine of the resur
rection of the body could be explained.

Calvin answered in an elaborate letter (June 26, 1549),2
to the effect that marriage with Romanists was to be con
demned ; that popish baptism was valid and efficacious, and
should be resorted to when no other can be had, since the
Roman communion, though corrupt, still retained marks of
the true Church as well as a scattered number of elect indi
viduals, and since baptism was not a popish invention but

1 " Inexplicabilis curiositas," as he called it, adding : " Utinam non simul
accederet phrenetica qucedam protervia" Letter to Bullinger, Aug. 7, 1554
(Opera, XV. 208).

2 Ep. 1212 in Opera, VIII. 307-311. We have in all four letters of Calvin
to the elder Socinus, and one from Socinus to Calvin.

§ 128. CALVIN AND L.ELIUS SOCINUS. 635

a divine institution and gift of God who fulfils his promises ;
that the question on the mode of the resurrection, and its
relation to the changing states of our mortal body, was one
of curiosity rather than utility.

Before receiving this answer, Socinus wrote to Calvin
again from Basel (July 25, 1549) on the same subjects, espe
cially the resurrection, which troubled his mind very much.1
To this Calvin returned another answer (December, 1549),
and warned him against the dangers of his sceptical bent of
mind.2

Socinus was not discouraged by the earnest rebuke, nor
shaken in his veneration for Calvin. During the Bolsec
troubles, when at Wittenberg, he laid before him his scruples
about predestination and free-will, and appealed to the testi
mony of Melanchthon, whom he had informed about the
harsh treatment of Bolsec. Calvin answered briefly and not
without some degree of bitterness.3

Socinus visited Geneva a second time in 1554, after his
return from a journey to Italy, and before making Zurich
his final home. He was then, apparently, still in friendly
relations to Calvin and Caraccioli.4 Soon afterwards he
opened to Calvin, in four questions, his objections to the
doctrine of the vicarious atonement. Calvin went to the
trouble to answer them at length, with solid arguments,
June, 1555.5

But Socinus was not satisfied. His scepticism extended
further to the doctrine of the sacraments and of the Trinity.

1 Opera, XIII. 337 sq.

2 Ep. 1323 in Opera, XIII. 484-487,

3 Opera, XIV. 228. The answer of Calvin in the Geneva library is with
out date. Bonnet, who first published it (II. 315), puts it at the end of 1551 ;
but it probably belongs to the beginning of 1552. See Melanehthon's letters
of Feb. 1, 1552, in which he mentions Laslio's reports about Bolsec's treat
ment, quoted p. 621, note.

4 As may be inferred from a postscript to his letter to Bullinger, dated
Geneva, April 19, 1554, in Trechsel, II. 437.

5 Responsio ad aliquot Lcelii Socini Senensis qucestiones, printed among the
Consilia theologica, in Opera, vol. X. 160-165. Comp. vol. XV. 642.

636 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

He doubted first the personality of the Holy Spirit, and then
the eternal divinity of Christ. He disapproved the execution
of Servetus, and advocated toleration.

Various complaints against Socinus reached Bullinger.
Calvin requested him to restrain the restless curiosity of
the sceptic. Vergerio, then at Tubingen, Saluz of Coire,
and other ministers, sent warnings. Bullinger instituted
a private inquiry in a kindly spirit, and was satisfied with
a verbal and written declaration of Socinus (July 15, 1555)
to the effect that he fully agreed with the Scriptures and
the Apostles' Creed, that he disapproved the doctrines of
the Anabaptists and Servetus, and that he would not teach
any errors, but live in quiet retirement. Bullinger protected
him against further attacks.

Socinus ceased to trouble the Reformers with questions.
He devoted himself to the congregation of refugees from
Locarno, and secured for them Ochino as pastor, but exerted
a bad influence upon him. Fortified with letters of recom
mendation he made another journey to Italy, via Germany
and Poland, to recover his property from the Inquisition.
Calvin gave him a letter to Prince Radziwill of Poland,
dated June, 1558, to further his object.1 But Socinus was
bitterly disappointed in his wishes, and returned to Zurich
in August, 1559. The last few years of his short life he
spent in quiet retirement. His nephew visited him several
times, and revered him as a divinely illuminated man to
whom he owed his most fruitful ideas.

The personal relation of Calvin and the elder Socinus is
one of curious mutual attraction and repulsion, like the two
systems which they represent.2

1 Ep. 2876 in 0/>era, XVII. 181 sq. Henry, III. Beilage, 128 sq., first
published this letter of recommendation, hut misdated it, June, 1553. Laelius
did not start on his last journey to Italy before 1558.

2 Trechsel, II. 166, thus describes the personal relationship: " So manche
Erfahrung von Calvin's Sc/iroffficit Lelio sowohl an sich selbst als an andern
ge.rnacJht hatte, so war dock nichts im Stande, sein addling svolles Zutrauen zu dem

§ 129. BERNARDINO OCHINO. 1487-1565. 637

The younger Socinus, the real founder of the system
called after him, did not come into personal contact with
Calvin, and labored among the scattered Unitarians and
Anabaptists in Poland.

Calvin took a deep interest in the progress of the Refor
mation in Poland, and wrote several letters to the king, to
Prince Radziwill, and some of the Polish nobility. But
when the writings of Servetus and antitrinitarian opinions
spread in that kingdom, he warned the Polish brethren, in
one of his last writings, against the danger of this heresy.

§ 129. Bernardino Ochino. 1487-1565.

Comp. § 40, p. 162. OCHINO'S Sermons, Tragedy, Catechism, Labyrinths, and
Dialogues. His works are very rare ; one of the best collections is in the
library of Wolfenbiittel ; copious extracts in Schelhorn, Trechsel,
Schweizer, and Benrath. A full list in Benrath's monograph, Appendix
II. 374-382. His letters (Italian and Latin), ibid. Appendix I. 337-373.
Ochino is often mentioned in Calvin's and Bullinger's correspondence.

ZACCARIA BOVERIO (Rom. Cath.) in the Chronicle of the Order of the Capu
chins, 1630 (inaccurate and hostile). BAYLE'S " Diet." — SCHELHORN:
Ergotzlichkeiten aus der Kirchenhistorie, Ulm and Leipzig, 1764, vol. III.
(with several documents in Latin and Italian). — TRECHSEL: Antitrinita-
rier, II. 202-270. — SCHWEIZER: Centraldogmen, I. 297-309. — CESARE
CANT(J (Rom. Cath.): Gli Eretici d' Italia, Turin, 1565-1567, 3 vols. —
BiJcusENSCHUTZ : Vie et e'er its de B. 0., Strasbourg, 1872. — * KARL
BENRATH: Bernardino Ochino von Siena. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der
Reformation, Leipzig, 1875 (384 pp. ; 2d ed. 1892 ; transl. by HELEN ZIM-
MERN, with preface by William Arthur, London, 1876, 304 pp. ; the letters
of Ochino are omitted). — Comp. C. SCHMIDT in his Peter Martyr Ver-
migli (1858), pp. 21 sqq., and art. in Herzog2 X. 680-683. (This article
is unsatisfactory and shows no knowledge of Benrath, although he is
mentioned in the lit.)

auKserordentlichen Marine zu schwdchen. Gerade wie ein Pol den entgegensetzten
anzieht, so wurde Lelio's negative Natur von der positiven Calvin's unanfhorlich
angezogen, so konnte der Mann des Zweifels aus einer Art von Instinkt nicht umhin^
bei dem F'elsenmann des Glaubens, der mit beispielloser Kiihnheit und Consequenz
die Tiefen der Gottheit erforschte, gleichsam seine Erganzung zu suchen, ohne dass
die totale Divergenz beider Naturen eine Uebereinstimmung des Denkens und der
Ansichten jemals erwarten Hess."

638 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

f-utfo

'/- /

y ,-. />f **»J/

/^?V

Ml SARA FACILE TUTTO IN CfiRISTO PER EL QUAL VIVO ET SPERO DI MORIRE.

(From Ochino's letter to the Council of Siena, Sept. 5, 1540 ; reproduced
from Benrath's monograph.)

THE CAPUCHIN MONK.

Bernardino Ochino l is one of the most striking and pictur
esque characters among the Italian Protestants of the Refor
mation period. He was an oratorical genius and monkish
saint who shone with meteoric brilliancy on the sky of Italy,

1 Also spelled Occhino, in Latin Ocellus.

§ 129. BERNARDINO OCHINO. 1487-1565. 639

but disappeared at last under a cloud of scepticism in the
far North.

He reminds one of three other eloquent monks : Savonarola,
who was burnt in Florence at the stake ; Father Gavazzi, who
became a Calvinist and died peacefully in Rome ; and Pere
Hyacinthe, who left the Carmelite order and the pulpit of
Notre Dame in Paris without joining any Protestant Church.

Ochino was born in the fair Tuscan city of Siena, which is
adorned by a Gothic marble dome and gave birth to six
popes, fifty cardinals, and a number of canonized saints,
among them the famous Caterina of Siena ; but also to Prot
estant heretics, like Lelio and Fausto Sozini. He joined the
Franciscans, and afterwards the severe order of the Capu
chins, which had recently been founded by Fra Matteo Bassi
in 1525. He hoped to gain heaven by self-denial and good
works. He far surpassed his brethren in ability and learning,1
although his education was defective (he did not know the
original languages of the Bible). He was twice elected
Vicar-General of the Order. He was revered by many as
a saint for his severe asceticism and mortification of the
flesh. Vittoria Colonna, the most gifted woman of Italy,
and the Duchess Renata of Ferrara were among his ardent
admirers. Pope Paul III. intended to create him a cardinal.2

OCHINO AS AN ORATOR.

Ochino was the most popular preacher of Italy in his time.
No such orator had appeared since the death of Savonarola
in 1498. He was in general demand for the course of ser
mons during Lent, and everywhere — in Siena, Naples, Rome,
Florence, Venice — he attracted crowds of people who listened
to him as to a prophet sent from God.

1 Boverius (ad ann. 1535): " Bernardinus divinis et humanis literis non
mediocriter imbutus."

2 Sand, Seckendorf, C. Schmidt (in Herzog), and others, state that the
pope made Ochino his confessor; but this is without support, and intrinsically
improbable. See Benrath, 33 sq. (German od.).

640 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

We can hardly understand from his printed sermons the
extravagant laudations of his contemporaries. But good
preachers were rare in Italy, and the effect of popular oratory
depends upon action as much as on diction. We must
take into account the magnetism of his personality, the force
of dramatic delivery, the lively gestures, the fame of his
monastic sanctity, his emaciated face, his gleaming eyes,
his tall stature and imposing figure. The portrait prefixed
to his "Nine Sermons," published at Venice, 1539, shows
him to us as he was at the time : a typical Capuchin monk,
with the head bent, the gaze upturned, the eyes deeply sunk
under the brows, the nose aquiline, the mouth half open, the
head shaved on top, the beard reaching down to his breast.

Cardinal Sadolet compared him to the orators of antiquity.
One of his hearers in Naples said, This man could make the
very stones weep.1

Cardinal Bembo 2 secured him for Lent at Venice through
Vittoria Colonna, and wrote to her (Feb. 23, 1539) : " I have
heard him all through Lent with such pleasure that I cannot
praise him enough. I have never heard more useful and
edifying sermons than his, and I no longer wonder that you
esteem him so highly. He preaches in a far more Christian
manner than other preachers, with more real sympathy and
love, and utters more soothing and elevating thoughts.
Every one is delighted with him." A few months later
(April 4, 1539) he wrote to the same lady: " Our Fra Ber
nardino is literally adored here. There is no one who does
not praise him to the skies. How deeply his words penetrate,
how elevating and comforting his discourses ! " He begged
him to eat meat and to restrain from excessive abstinence
lest he should break down.

1 " Predicava con ispirito grande che faceva piagnere i sassi." Some wrongly
attribute this saying of Rosso to the Emperor Charles V., who heard Ochino
at Naples. Benrath, 24, note.

2 He was then the historiographer of Venice, but was soon afterwards
created cardinal by Paul III., March 24, 1539.

§ 129. BERNARDINO OCHINO. 1487-1565. 641

Even Pietro Aretino, the most frivolous and immoral poet
of that time, was superficially converted for a brief season by
Ochino's preaching, and wrote to Paul III. (April 21, 1539) :
" Bembo has won a thousand souls for Paradise by bringing
to Venice Fra Bernardino, whose modesty is equal to his
virtue. I have myself begun to believe in the exhortations
trumpeted forth from the mouth of this apostolic monk."

Cardinal Commendone, afterwards Bishop of Amelia, an
enemy of Ochino, gives this description of him : "Every thing
about Ochino contributed to make the admiration of the
multitude almost overstep* all human bounds, — the fame of
his eloquence ; his prepossessing, ingratiating manner ; his
advancing years ; his mode of life ; the rough Capuchin
garb ; the long beard reaching to his breast ; the gray hair ;
the pale, thin face ; the artificial aspect of bodily weakness ;
finally, the reputation of a holy life. Wherever he was to
speak the citizens might be seen in crowds ; no church was
large enough to contain the multitude of listeners. Men
flocked as numerously as women. When he went elsewhere
the crowd followed after to hear him. He was honored not
only by the common people, but also by princes and kings.
Wherever he came he was offered hospitality ; he was met
at his arrival, and escorted at his departure, by the dignita
ries of the place. He himself knew how to increase the
desire to hear him, and the reverence shown him. Obedient
to the rule of his order, he only travelled on foot ; he was
never seen to ride, although his health was delicate and his
age advanced. Even when Ochino was the guest of nobles
— an honor he could not always refuse — he could never be
induced, by the splendor of palaces, dress, and ornament,
to forsake his mode of life. When invited to table, he ate
of only one very simple dish, and he drank little wine; if
a soft bed had been prepared for him, he begged permission
to rest on a more comfortable pallet, spread his cloak on the
ground, and laid down to rest. These practices gain him
incredible honor throughout all Italy."

642 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

CONVERSION TO PROTESTANTISM.

Ochino was already past fifty when he began to lose faith
in the Roman Church. The first traces of the change are
found in his "Nine Sermons" and "Seven Dialogues," which
were published at Venice in 1539 and 1541. He seems to
have passed through an experience similar to that of Luther
in the convent at Erfurt, only less deep and lasting. The
vain monastic struggle after righteousness led him to despair
of himself, and to find peace in the assurance of justification
by faith in the merits of Christ. As long as he was a monk,
so he informs us, he went even beyond the requirements of
his order in reading masses, praying the Pater Noster and
Ave Maria, reciting Psalms and prayers, confessing trifling
sins once or twice a day, fasting and mortifying his body.
But he came gradually to the conviction that Christ has fully
satisfied for his elect, and conquered Paradise for them ; that
monastic vows were not obligatory, and were even immoral ;
and that the Roman Church, though brilliant in outward
appearance, was thoroughly corrupt and an abomination in
the eyes of God.

In this transition state he was much influenced by his per
sonal intercourse with Jean de Valdes and Peter Martyr.
Valde's, a Spanish nobleman who lived at Rome and Naples,
was an evangelical mystic, and the real author of that
remarkable book, "On the Benefit of Christ's Death" (pub
lished at Venice, 1540). It was formerly attributed to
Aonio Paleario (a friend of Ochino), and had a wide circu
lation in Italy till it was suppressed and publicly burnt at
Naples in 1553.

During the Lent season of 1542, Ochino preached his last
course of sermons at Venice. The papal agents watched
him closely and reported some expressions as heretical. He
was forbidden to preach, and cited to Rome.

Caraffa had persuaded Pope Paul III. to use violent meas
ures for the suppression of the Protestant heresy. In Rome,

§ 129. BERNAKDINO OCHINO. 1487-1565. 643

Peter had conquered Simon Magus, the patriarch of all
heretics; in Rome, the successor of Peter must conquer
all successors of the arch-heretic. The Roman Inquisition
was established by the bull Licet ab initio, July 21, 1542,
under the direction of six cardinals, with plenary power to
arrest and imprison persons suspected of heresy, and to con
fiscate their property. The famous General of the Capuchins
was to be the first victim of the " Holy Office."

Ochino departed for Rome in August. Passing through
Bologna, he called on the noble Cardinal Contarini, who in
the previous year had met Melanchthon and Calvin at the
Colloquy of Ratisbon, and was suspected of having a leaning
to the Lutheran doctrine of justification, and to a moderate
reformation. The cardinal was sick, and died soon after
(August 24). The interview was brief, but left upon Ochino
the impression that there was no chance for him in Rome.
He continued his journey to Florence, met Peter Martyr in
a similar condition, and was warned of the danger awaiting
both. He felt that he must choose between Rome or Christ,
between silence or death, and that flight was the only escape
from this alternative. He resolved to save his life for future
usefulness, though he was already fifty-six years old, gray-
haired, and enfeebled by his ascetic life. If I remain in
Italy, he said, my mouth is sealed ; if I leave, I may by my
writings continue to labor for the truth with some prospect
of success.

He proved by his conduct the sincerity of his conversion
to Protestantism. He risked every thing by secession from
the papacy. An orator has no chance in a foreign land with
a foreign tongue.1

1 Caraffa, the restorer of the Inquisition, ascribed his conversion to impure
motives, but without evidence. On these calumnies see Benrath, pp. 170 sq.
Audin (ch. XLV.), drawing on his imagination, says that Ochino, tempted by
the demon of doubt and pride, fled to Geneva with a young girl whom he had
seduced !

644 THE [REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

OCHINO IN SWITZERLAND.

In August, 1542, he left Florence ; Peter Martyr followed
two clays later. He was provided with a servant and a
horse by Ascanio Colonna, a brother of Vittoria, his friend.1
At Ferrara, the Duchess Renata furnished him with clothing
and other necessaries, and probably also with a letter to her
friend Calvin. According to Boverius, the annalist of the
Capuchins, who deplores his apostasy as a great calamity for
the order, he was accompanied by three lay brethren from
Florence.

He proceeded through the Grisons to Zurich, and stopped
there two days. He was kindly received by Bullinger, who
speaks of him in a letter to Vadian (Dec. 19, 1542) as a
venerable man, famous for sanctity of life and eloquence.

He arrived at Geneva about September, 1542, and remained
there three years. He preached to the small Italian congre
gation, but devoted himself chiefly to literary work by which
he hoped to reach a larger public in his native land. He
was deeply impressed with the moral and religious prosperity
of Geneva, the like of which he had never seen before, and
gave a favorable description of it in one of his Italian
sermons.2

" In Geneva, where I am now residing," he wrote in Octo
ber, 1542, " excellent Christians are daily preaching the pure
word of God. The Holy Scriptures are constantly read and
openly discussed, and every one is at liberty to propound what
the Holy Spirit suggests to him, just as, according to the tes
timony of Paul, was the case in the primitive Church. Every
day there is a public service of devotion. Every Sunday
there is catechetical instruction of the young, the simple, and
the ignorant. Cursing and swearing, unchastity, sacrilege,
adultery, and impure living, such as prevail in many places

1 Colonna sent him afterwards through a messenger some means of sup
port to Switzerland, as we learn from a letter of Bullinger.

* Quoted in Italian by Trechsel, II. 203, in German by Benrath, p. 169.

§ 129. BERNARDINO OCHINO. 1487-1565. 645

where I have lived, are unknown here. There are no pimps
and harlots. The people do not know what rouge is, and
they are all clad in a seemly fashion. Games of chance are
not customary. Benevolence is so great that the poor need
not beg. The people admonish each other in brotherly fash
ion, as Christ prescribes. Lawsuits are banished from the
city; nor is there any simony, murder, or party spirit, but
only peace and charity. On the other hand, there are no
organs here, no noise of bells, no showy songs, no burning
candles and lamps, no relics, pictures, statues, canopies, or
splendid robes, no farces, or cold ceremonies. The churches
are quite free from all idolatry." 1

Ochino wrote at Geneva a justification of his flight, in a
letter to Girolamo Muzio (April 7, 1543). In a letter to the
magistrates of Siena, he gave a full confession of his faith
based chiefly 011 the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the
Romans (Nov. 3, 1543). He published, in rapid succession,
seven volumes of Italian sermons or theological essays.2

He says in the Preface to these sermons : " Now, my dear
Italy, I can no more speak to you from mouth to mouth ; but
I will write to you in thine own language, that everybody
may understand me. My comfort is that Christ so willed it,
that, laying aside all earthly considerations, I may regard
only the truth. And as the justification of the sinner by
Christ is the beginning of the Christian life, let us begin
with it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." His sermons
are evangelical, and show a mystical tendency, as we might
expect from a disciple of Valdes. He lays much stress on
the vital union of the soul with Christ by faith and love.
He teaches a free salvation by the sole merits of Christ,
and the Calvinistic doctrine of sovereign election, but with-

"Le chtese sono purgatissime da ogni idolatria." This testimony is con
firmed by Vergerio, Farel, Knox, and others. See § 110, pp. 516 sqq.

2 Prediche, Geneva, 1542-1544, several editions, also in Latin, French,
German, and English. See Benrath, pp. 374 sq., and his summary of the
contents, pp. 175 sqq.

646 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

out the negative inference of reprobation. He wrote also
a popular, paraphrastic commentary on his favorite Epistle
to the Romans (1545), which was translated into Latin and
German. Afterwards, he published sermons on the. Epistle
to the Galatians, which were printed at Augsburg, 1546.

He lived on good terms with Calvin, who distrusted the
Italians, but after careful inquiry was favorably impressed
with Ochino's " eminent learning and exemplary life." l He
mentions him first in a letter to Viret (September, 1542) as
a venerable refugee, who lived in Geneva at his own expense,
and promised to be of great service if he could learn French.2
In a letter to Melanchthon (Feb. 14, 1543), he calls him an
"eminent and excellent man, who has occasioned no little
stir in Italy by his departure." 3 Two years afterwards
(Aug. 15, 1545), he recommended him to Myconius of
Basel as " deserving of high esteem everywhere."4

Ochino associated at Basel with Castellio, and employed
him in the translation of his works from the Italian. This
connection may have shaken his confidence in the Calvinistic
doctrine of predestination and free-will.

OCHINO IN GERMANY.

He labored for some time as preacher and author in Strass-
burg, where he met his old friend Peter Martyr, and in Augs
burg, where he received from the city council a regular

1 He wrote to Pellican, April 19, 1543: " Quoniam Italicis plerisque ingeniis
non multum fido . . . , contuli cum eo diligenter. . . . Hoc testimonium pio et
sancto viro visum est. . , . Est enim prcestanti et ingenio et doctrina et sanctitate."
Opera, XI. 528.

2 Opera, XI. 447 sq. Comp. letter to Viret, October, 1542, ibid. 458:
*' Bernardus noster miris machinis impetitus est, ut nobis abduceretur : constanter
tamen perstat."

3 " Magnum et prceclarum virum, qui suo discessu non parum Italiam commovit."
Opera, XI. 517.

4 " Bern. Senensis, vir nuper in Italia magni nominis, dignus certe qui habeatur
ubique in pretio." Opera, XII. 135. Benrath (192) gives the wrong date of
this letter, viz. 1542, — probably a typographical error.

§ 129. BERNARDINO OCHINO. 1487-1565. 647

salary of two hundred guilders as preacher among the for
eigners. This was his first regular settlement after he had
left Italy. At Augsburg he lived with his brother-in-law
and sister. He seems to have married at that time, if not
earlier.1

OCHINO IN ENGLAND.

After his victory over the Smalkaldian League, the Empe
ror Charles V. held a triumphant entry in Augsburg, Jan.
23, 1547, and demanded the surrender of the apostate monk,
whose powerful voice he had heard from the pulpit at Naples
eleven years before. The magistrates enabled Ochino to
escape in the night. He fled to Zurich, where he accident
ally met Calvin, who arrived there on the same day. From
Zurich he went to Basel.

Here he received, in 1547, a call to England from Arch
bishop Cranmer, who needed foreign aid in the work of the
Reformation under the favorable auspices of the young King
Edward VI. At the same time he called Peter Martyr, then
professor at Strassburg, to a theological professorship at
Oxford, and two years afterwards he invited Bucer and
Fagius of Strassburg, who refused to sign the Augsburg
Interim, to professorial chairs in the University of Cambridge
(1549). Ochino and Peter Martyr made the journey together
in company with an English knight, who provided the outfit
and the travelling expenses.

Ochino labored six years in London, from 1547 to 1554,—
probably the happiest of his troubled life, — as evangelist
among the Italian merchants and refugees, and as a writer
in aid of the Reformation. His family followed him. He
enjoyed the confidence of Cranmer, who appointed him
canon of Canterbury (though he never resided there), and
received a competent salary from the private purse of the
king.

1 Benrath, p. 194. We know nothing of his wife and children, not even
their names. An old monk is not well fitted for a happy family life.

648 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

His chief work of that period is a theological drama against
the papacy under the title " A Tragedy or a Dialogue of the
unjust, usurped primacy of the Bishop of Rome," with a flat
tering dedication to Edward VI. He takes the ground of
all the Reformers, that the pope is the predicted Antichrist,
seated in the temple of God ; and traces, in a series of nine
conversations, with considerable dramatic skill but imperfect
historical information, the gradual growth of the papacy from
Boniface III. and Emperor Phocas (607) to its downfall in
England under Henry VIII. and Edward VI.1

OCHINO AGAIN IN SWITZERLAND.

After the accession of Queen Mary, Ochino had to flee,
and went a second time to Geneva. He arrived there a day
after the burning of Servetus (Oct. 28, 1553), which he dis
approved, but he did not lose his respect for Calvin, whom
he called, in a letter of Dec. 4, 1555, the first divine and the
ornament of the century.2

He accepted a call as pastor of the Italian congregation at
Zurich. Here he associated freely with Peter Martyr, but
more, it would seem, with Lselius Socinus, who was also
a native of Siena, and who by his sceptical opinions exerted
an unsettling influence on his mind.

He wrote a catechism for his congregation (published at
Basel, 1561) in the form of a dialogue between u Illuminate "
(the catechumen) and " Ministro." He explains the usual
five parts — the Decalogue (which fills one-half of the book),
the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, Baptism, and the
Lord's Supper, with an appendix of prayers.

His last works were his " Labyrinths" (1561) and "Thirty
Dialogues " (1563), translated by Castellio into Latin, and

1 The book was translated from Latin into English by Dr. John Ponnet,
afterwards bishop of Winchester, and published in London, 1549. Benrath
gives a good summary, pp. 215 sqq.

2 " Seculi nostri decus." Benrath, 364 sq.

§ 129. BERNARDINO OCHINO. 1487-1565. 649

published by an Italian printer at Basel. In these books
Ochino discusses the doctrines of predestination, free-will,
the Trinity, and monogamy, in a latitudinarian and sceptical
way, which made the heretical view appear stronger in the
argument than the orthodox.

The most objectionable is the dialogue on polygamy (Dial.
XXI.), which he seemed to shield by the example of the
patriarchs and kings of the Old Testament; while monog
amy was not sufficiently defended, although it is declared
to be the only moral form of marriage.1 The subject was
much ventilated in that age, especially in connection with
the bigamy of Philip of Hesse and the deplorable connivance
of the Lutheran Reformers. A dialogue in favor of polyg
amy appeared in 1541, under the fictitious name of " Hulde-
ricus Neobulus," in the interest of Philip of Hesse. From
this dialogue Ochino borrowed some of his strongest argu
ments.2 This accounts for his theoretical error. He cer
tainly could have had no personal motive, for he was then
in his seventy-seventh year, a widower with four children.3
His moral life had always been unblemished, as his congre
gation and Bullinger testified.

THE END.

The dialogue on polygamy caused the unceremonious
deposition and expulsion of the old man from Zurich by the
Council, in December, 1563. In vain did he protest against
misinterpretation, and beg to be allowed to remain during
the cold winter with his four children. He was ordered to
quit the city within three weeks. Even the mild Bullinger

1 I learn from Schelhorn (III. 2152), that this dialogue appeared in an
English translation, " by a Person of Quality," in London, 1657.

2 The correspondence of the two books has been proven by Schelhorn, I.e.,
III. 2140 sqq., and I. 631 sqq. Bucer was suspected of being concealed under
the Neobulus, but he denied it. See Schelhorn, I. 634.

8 His wife died in consequence of an accident shortly before the Dialogues
were published. Benrath, p. 307.

650 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

did not protect him. He went to Basel, but the magistrates
of that city were even more intolerant than the clergy, and
would not permit him to remain during the winter. Castellio,
the translator of the obnoxious books, was also called to
account, but was soon summoned to a higher judgment
(December 23). The printer, Perna, who had sold all the
copies, was threatened with punishment, but seems to have
escaped it.

Ochino found a temporary hiding-place in Niirnberg, and
sent from there in self-defence an ill-tempered attack upon
Zurich, to which the ministers of that city replied.1

Being obliged to leave Niirnberg, he turned his weary
steps to Poland, and was allowed to preach to his country
men at Cracow. But Cardinal Hosius and the papal nuncio
denounced him as an atheist, and induced the king to issue
an edict by which all non-Catholic foreigners were expelled
from Poland (Aug. 6, 1564).

Ochino entered upon his last weary journey. At Pinczow
he was seized by the pestilence and lost three of his children ;
nothing is known of the fourth. He himself survived, but
a few weeks afterwards he took sick again and ended his
lonely life at the end of December, 1564, at Schlackau in
Moravia : a victim of his sceptical speculations and the intol
erance of his age. A veil is thrown over his last days : no
monument, no inscription marks his grave. What a sad
contrast between the bright morning and noon-day, and the
gloomy evening, of his public life !

A false rumor was spread that before his journey to Poland
he met at Schaffhausen the cardinal of Lorraine on his return
from the Council of Trent, and offered to prove twenty-four
errors against the Reformed Church. The offer was declined
with the remark : " Four errors are enough." The rumor was
investigated, but could not be verified. He himself denied

1 Spongia adversus aspergines Bernardini Ochini, etc., printed in Hottinger's
Historia Eccles. N. Ti., and in Schelhorn, III. 2157-2194.

§ 130. COLITIS SECUNDUS CURIO. 1503-1569. 651

it, and one of his last known utterances was : " I wish to be
neither a Bullingerite, nor a Calvinist, nor a Papist, but
simply a Christian." 1

His sceptical views on the person of Christ and the atone
ment disturbed and nearly broke up the Italian congregation
in Zurich. No new pastor was elected; the members coa
lesced with the German population, and the antitrinitarian
influences disappeared.

§ 130. Ocellus Secundus Curio. 1503-1569.

CURIO'S works and correspondence. — TRECHSEL, I. 215 sqq., and WAGEMANN
in Herzog,2 III. 396-400 (where the literature is given).

Celio Secundo Curione or Curio was the youngest of
twenty-three children of a Piedmontese nobleman, studied
history and law at Turin, became acquainted with the
writings of Luther, Zwingli, and Melanchthon through an
Augustinian monk, and labored zealously for the spread of
Protestant doctrines in Pavia, Padua, Venice, Ferrara, and
Lucca. He barely escaped doath at the stake, and fled to
Switzerland with letters of recommendation by the Duchess
Renata, the friend of Calvin. He received an appointment
as professor of eloquence in Lausanne (1543-1547) and after
wards in Basel. He was the father-in-law of Zanchius. He
attracted students from abroad, declined several calls, kept
up a lively correspondence with his countrymen and with
the Reformers, and wrote a number of theological and literary
works. He sided with the latitudinarians, and thereby lost
the confidence of Calvin and Bullinger; but he maintained
his ground in Basel, and became the ancestor of several
famous theological families of that city (Buxtorf, Zwinger,
Werenfels, Frey).

Curio sympathized with Zwingli's favorable judgment of
the noble heathen, and thought that they were as acceptable

1 From a letter of Knibb to Bullinger, Easter, 1564, in the Simler Collec
tion in Zurich. Trechsel, II. 265; Benrath, 315.

652 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

to God as the pious Israelites. Vergerio, formerly a friend
of Curio, charged him with the Pelagian heresy and with
teaching that men may be saved without the knoAvledge of
Christ, though not without Christ.1

Curio advanced also the hopeful view that the kingdom
of heaven is much larger than the kingdom of Satan, and
that the saved will far outnumber the lost.2

Such opinions were disapproved by Peter Martyr, Zanchi,
Bullinger, Brenz, John a Lasco, and all orthodox Protestants
of that age, as paradoxical and tending to Universalism. But
modern Calvinists go further than Curio, at least in regard
to the large majority of the saved.3

§ 131. The Italian Antitrinitarians in Greneva. Grribaldo,
Biandrata, Alciati, Grentile.

See lit. in § 127, and SANDIUS : Bibliotheca antitrinitaria. TRECHSEL (I. 277-
390) is still the best authority on the early Antitrinitarians in Switzer
land, and gives large extracts from the sources. FOCK (I. 134) has only
a few words on them. — Comp. in addition, HEBERLE : G-. Biandrata, in
the " Tiibinger Zeitschrif t f iir Theologie," for 1840, No. IV. DORNER :
Hist, of Christology, German ed., II. 656 sqq.

The antitrinitarian leaven entered the Italian congregation
at Geneva during and after the trial of Servetus, but was
suppressed by the combined action of the Swiss Churches.
This constitutes the last chapter of Antitrinitarianism in
Switzerland.

1 "Absque Christi cognitions, licet non sine Christo, aliquos salutem adipisci."
Letter of Vergerio to Bullinger (Tubingen, Sept. 6, 1554), quoted by Trechsel,
I. 217. Vergerio denounced Curio to the Swiss Churches. See his letters to
Amerbach, in Trechsel, II. 463-465.

2 De amplitudine beati regni Dei dialogi II. Printed at Poschiavo in the
Orisons, 1554.

3 Dr. Charles Hodge (Syst. Theol III. 879 sq.) says : " We have reason
to believe, as urged in the first volume of this work, and as often urged else
where, that the number of the finally lost in comparison with the whole
number of the saved will be very inconsiderable."

§ 131. THE ITALIAN ANTITRINITARIANS IN GENEVA. 653

Several Italian refugees denounced the execution of Ser-
vetus, adopted his views and tried to improve them, but
were far inferior to him in genius and originality.

They circulated libels on Calvin, and ventilated their
opinions in the weekly conference meetings of the Italian con
gregation, which were open to questions and free discussions.

1. MATTEO GRIBALDO, a noted professor of jurisprudence
at Padua, bought the estate of Farges in the territory of
Bern, near Geneva, and spent there a part of each year. He
attended the Italian meetings on his visits to the town.
During the trial of Servetus he openly expressed his dis
approval of civil punishment for religious opinions, and
maintained that everybody should be allowed to believe what
he pleased. He at first concealed his views on the doctrine
of Servetus, except among intimate friends. After an exam
ination before the Council, he was ordered to leave the city
on suspicion of heretical opinions on the Trinity (1559).
These opinions were crude and undigested. He vacillated
between dyotheism or tritheism and Arianism. He could
not conceive of Father and Son except as two distinct beings
or substances : the one begetting, the other begotten ; the
one sending, the other sent. He compared their relation to
that between Paul and Apollos, who were two individuals,
yet one in the abstract idea of the apostolate.

Before his dismission from Geneva he had, through the
influence of Vergerio, received an appointment as professor
of law in the University of Tubingen. Passing through
Zurich he called on Bullinger, and complained bitterly of
the conduct of Calvin. He gained the applause of the
students in Tubingen, and was often consulted by Duke
Christopher of Wurtemberg on important matters.

But rumors of his heresies reached Tubingen, and inquiries
were sent to Geneva. Calvin warned his old teacher, Melchior
Volmar, against him, and Beza alarmed Vergerio by unfavor
able reports. Vergerio informed the Duke of the charges.

654 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Gribaldo was subjected to an examination before the aca
demic senate in the presence of the Duke, and was pressed
for a decided answer to the question, whether he agreed with
the Athanasian Creed and the edict of Theodosius I. respect
ing the Trinity and the Catholic faith. He asked three
weeks' time for consideration, but escaped to his villa at
Farges, where his family still resided.

There he was apprehended by the magistrates of Bern
at the instance of the Duke of Wiirtemberg, in September,
1557. His papers were seized and found to contain anti-
trinitarian and other heresies. He was ordered to renounce
his errors by a confession drawn up with his own hand, and
banished from the territory of Bern ; but on his promise to
keep quiet, he was allowed to return the following year
for the sake of his seven children. He died of the plague
which visited Switzerland in 1564, and swept away thirty-
eight thousand persons in the territory of Bern, besides seven
thousand in Basel, and fourteen hundred at Coire. It was a
fatal time for the Reformed Church, for between 1564 and
1566 several of the leaders died; as Calvin, Farel, Bibliander,
Borrhaus, Blaurer, Fabricius, and Saluz.1

2. GIORGIO BIANDRATA (or BLANDRATA), an educated
physician of a noble family of Saluzzo in Piedmont (born
about 1515), escaped the inquisition by flight to Geneva in
1557. He agreed substantially with Gribaldo, but was more
subtle and cautious. He called Calvin his reverend father,
and consulted him on theological questions. He seemed to
be satisfied, but returned again and again with new doubts.
Calvin, overburdened with labor and care, patiently listened
and spent whole hours with the sceptic. He also answered
his objections in writing.2 At last he refused further discus
sion as useless. uHe tried," wrote Calvin to Lismann, "to
circumvent me like a serpent, but God gave me strength
to withstand his cunning."

1 Trechsel, II. 356.

2 Ad questiones Blandratce responsum, 1558. See lit. in § 127.

§ 131. THE ITALIAN ANTITRINITARIANS IN GENEVA. 655

The spirit of doubt spread more and more in the Italian
congregation. One of the principal sympathizers of Biand-
rata was GIANPAOLO ALCIATI, a Piedmontese who had
served in the army, and was not used to reverent language.

Martinengo, the worthy Italian pastor, shortly before his
death, begged Calvin to take care of the little flock and to
extirpate the dangerous heresy. Accordingly, a public meet
ing of the Italian congregation was held May 18, 1558, in
the presence of Calvin and two members of the Council.
Calvin, in the name of the Council, invited the malcontents
to utter themselves freely, and assured them that they should
not be punished. Biandrata appealed to certain expressions
of Calvin, but was easily convicted of mistake. Alciati went
so far as to declare that the orthodox party "worshipped
three devils worse than all the idols of popery." After a
three hours' discussion, it was resolved that all the members
of the congregation should subscribe a confession of faith,
which asserted the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, as
being consistent with the essential unity of the Godhead.

Six members at first refused to subscribe, but yielded after
wards with the exception, it seems, of Biandrata and Alciati.
They felt unsafe in Geneva, and went to Bern. There they
found a sympathizer in Zurkinden, the secretary of the city,
who engaged in an angry controversy with Calvin.

Biandrata left for Poland, gained the confidence of Prince
Radziwill, propagated his Unitarian opinions, and justified
himself before a synod at Pinczow (1561). In 1563 he
accepted a call of Prince John Sigismund of Transylvania as
his physician, and converted him and many others to his
views, but was charged by Faustus Socinus to have in his
last years favored the Jesuits from mercenary motives. It
is possible that the old man, weary of theological strife, lost
himself in the maze of scepticism, like Ochino. Tradition
reports that he was robbed and murdered by his own nephew
after 1585.

656 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

3. The peace of the Italian congregation was again dis
turbed by GIOVANNE VALENTI GENTILE of Calabria, a
schoolmaster of some learning and acuteness, who was
attracted to Geneva by Calvin's reputation, but soon imbibed
the sentiments of Gribaldo and Biandrata. He was one of
the six members who had at first refused to sign the Italian
confession of faith. Soon after the departure of Biandrata
and Alciati he openly professed their views, urged, as he said,
by his conscience. He charged the orthodox doctrine of the
Trinity with quaternity, — adding a general divine essence
to the three divine essences of Father, Son, and Spirit, — and
maintained that the Father was the only divine essence, the
" esseritiator." Both these ideas he borrowed from Servetus.
The Son is only an image and reflection of the Father.

Gentile was thrown into prison, July, 1557, by order of
the Council, on the charge of violating the confession he had
signed. He repeated his views and appealed to the minis
ters and the Council for protection against the tyranny of
Calvin, but he was refuted by the ministers. At last he
apologized for his severe language against Calvin, whom
he had always revered as a great man, but he refused to
recant his views. The Council asked the judgment of five
lawyers, who decided that, according to the imperial laws
(I)e xumma Trinitate et fide catliolica et de hereticis), Gentile
deserved death by fire. The Council, instead, pronounced the
milder sentence of death by the sword (Aug. 15). It seems
that Calvin's advice, which had been disregarded in the case
of Servetus, now prevailed in the case of Gentile.

The fear of death induced Gentile to withdraw his charges
against the orthodox doctrine, and to sign a brief confession
of faith in three divine Persons in one Essence, and in the
unity, coequality, and coeternity of the Son and Holy Spirit
with the Father. He was released of the sentence of death ;
yet in view of his perjury, his heresies, and false accusations
against the Church of Geneva, he was condemned by the

§ 131. THE ITALIAN ANTITRINITARIANS IN GENEVA. 657

magistrates to make an amende honorable, that is, in his
shirt, bareheaded, and barefooted, with a lighted torch in
his hand, to beg on his knees the judge's pardon, to burn
his writings with his own hand, and to walk through the
principal streets under the sound of the trumpet. The sen
tence was carried out on the second of September. He
submitted to it with surprising readiness, happy to escape
death at such a cheap price. He also promised on oath not
to leave the city without permission.

But he wras hardly set at liberty when he escaped and
joined his friends Gribaldo and Alciati at Farges. Soon
afterwards he spent some time at Lyons. He studied the
ante-Xicene Fathers, who confirmed his subordinationism,
and wrrote a book (Antidota) in defence of his views and
against the chapter on the Trinity in Calvin's Institutes.
He declared that the orthodox terms of homoousia, person,
substance, trinity, unity, were profane and monstrous, and
obscured the true doctrine of the one God. He also attacked
the doctrine of the two natures in Christ and the communi
cation of attributes as idle speculations, which should be
banished from the Church. He borrowed from Origen the
distinction between the original God (auro^eo?), that is,
the Father and the derived or secondary God ($eo?, Bevrepc,-
Oeos, erepoOeo^ — that is, the Son. The Father alone is God
in the strict sense of the term — the essentiator ; the Son is
essentiatxs and subordinate. He spoke most disrespectfully
and passionately of the orthodox views. Calvin refuted his
opinions in a special book (1561).

Gentile roused the suspicion of the Catholic authorities in
Lyons and was imprisoned, but was set free after fifty days
on his declaration that his writings were only opposed to
Calvinism, not to orthodoxy.

But he felt unsafe in France, and accepted, with Alciati,
an invitation of Biandrata to Poland in the summer of 1563.

After the royal edict, which expelled all the Antitrinita-

658 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

rians, he returned to Switzerland, was apprehended by the
authorities of Bern, convicted of heresies, deceits, and eva
sions, and beheaded on the tenth of September, 1566. On
the way to the place of execution, he declared that he died
a martyr for the honor of the supreme God, and charged
the ministers who accompanied him with Sabellianism. He
received the death-stroke with firmness, amid the exhorta
tions of the clergy and the prayers of the multitude for God's
mercy. Benedict Aretius, a theologian of Bern, published
in the following year the acts of the process with a refuta
tion of Gentile's objections to the orthodox doctrine.

The fate of Gentile was generally approved. No voice of
complaint or protest was heard, except a feeble one from
Basel. Calvin had died more than two years before, and
now the city of Bern, which had opposed his doctrinal and
disciplinary rigor, condemned to death a heretic less gifted
and dangerous than Servetus. Gentile himself indirectly ad
mitted that a teacher of false religion was deserving of death,
but he considered his own views as true and scriptural.1

The death of Gentile ends the history of Antitrinitarianism
in Switzerland. In the same year the strictly orthodox
Second Helvetic Confession of Bullinger was published and
adopted in the Reformed Cantons.

§ 132. The Eucharistic Controversies. Calvin and WestphaL

I. The Sources are given in § 117. See especially Calvin's Opera, vol. IX.

1-252, and the Prolegomena, pp. i-xxiv. The correspondence between
Bullinger, a Lasco, Farel, Viret, and Calvin, on the controversy, in his
Opera, vols. XV. and XVI. The letters of Melanchthon from this period
in the Corpus Reform, vols. VII.-IX. The works of Westphal are quoted
below.

II. PLANCK (neutral) : Geschichte des Protest. Lehrbegriff's (Leipzig, 1799),
vol. V. Part II. 1-137. — EBRARD (Reformed): Das Dogma vom heil.
Abendmahl, II. 525-744. — NEVIN (Reformed), in the "Mercersburg
Review " for 1850, pp. 486-510. — MONCKEBERG (Lutheran) : Joachim
Westphal und Joh. Calvin, 1865. — WAGENMANN in Herzog2, XVII. 1-6.

1 See on this last chapter in the history of Gentile, Trechsel, II. 355-380.

§ 132. THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSIES. 659

HENRY. III. 298-357. — DYER, 401-412. — STAHELIN, II. 112 sqq., 189 sqq,
— GIESELER, III. Part II. 280 sqq. — DORNER: Geschichte der protest.
TheoL, 400 sqq. — SCHAFF, Creeds, I. 279 sqq.

The sacramental controversy between Luther and Zwingli
was apparently solved by the middle theory of Calvin,
Bullinger, and Melanchthon, and had found a symbolical
expression in the Zurich Consensus of 1549, for Switzerland,
and even before that, in the Wittenberg Concordia of 1536
and in Melanchthon's irenical restatement of the 10th
article of the Altered Augsburg Confession of 1540, for
Germany. Luther's renewed attack upon the Swiss in 1544
was isolated, and not supported by any of his followers ;
while Calvin, from respect for Luther, kept silent.

But in 1552 a second sacramental war was opened by
Westphal in the interest of the high Lutheran theory, and
gradually spread over all Germany and Switzerland.

We may well " lament," with Calvin in his letter to
Schalling (March, 1557), that those who professed the same
gospel of Christ were distracted on the subject of his Last
Supper, which should have been the chief bond of union
among them.1

The Westphal-Calvin controversy did not concern the
fact of the real presence, which was conceded by Calvin in
all his previous writings on the subject, but the subordinate
questions of the mode of the presence, of the ubiquity of
Christ's body, and the effect of the sacrament on unworthy
communicants, whether they received the very body and
blood of Christ, or only bread and wine, to their condemna
tion. Calvin clearly states the points of difference in the
preface to his " Second Defence " : • —

1 " Dolcndum est quum nos pauci numero idem prqfiteamur evangelium, sacrce
ccence occasione, quam prcecipuum inter nos nnitatis vinculum esse decebat, in varias
sententias distrahi. Sed hoc longe atrocius, non minus hostiliter confligere quam
si nihil esset nobis cum Christo commune." Opera, XVI. 429. Planck, the
impartial Lutheran historian, calls the sacramental controversy "die drger-
lichste alter Streitigkeiten " (/.c., V. I. p. 1).

660 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

" That I have written reverently of the legitimate use, dignity, and efficacy
of the sacraments, even he himself [Westphal] does not deny. How skilfully
or learnedly in his judgment, I care not, since it is enough to be commended for
piety by an enemy. The contest remaining with him embraces three articles :

" First, he insists that the bread of the Supper is substantially (substantiali-
ter) the body of Christ. Secondly, in order that Christ may exhibit himself
present to believers, he insists that his body is immense (immen&utn), and
exists everywhere, though without place (ubique esse, extra locum}. Thirdly,
he insists that no figure is to be admitted in the words of Christ, whatever
agreement there may be as to the thing. Of such importance does he deem
it to stick doggedly to the words, that he would sooner see the whole globe
convulsed than admit any exposition.

" We maintain that the body and blood of Christ are truly offered (vere
offerri) to us in the Supper in order to give life to our souls ; and we explain,
without ambiguity, that our souls are invigorated by this spiritual aliment
(spirituali alimento}, which is offered to us in the Supper, just as our bodies
are nourished by daily bread. Therefore we hold, that in the Supper there
is a true partaking (vera participatio} of the flesh and blood of Christ.
Should any one raise a dispute as to the word 'substance,' we assert that
Christ, from the substance of his flesh, breathes life into our souls; nay,
infuses his own life into us (propriam in nos vitam dijfundere} , provided
always that no transfusion of substance be imagined." 1

The Swiss had in this controversy the best of the argu
ment and showed a more Christian spirit. The result was
disastrous to Lutheranism. The Palatinate, in part also
Hesse, Bremen, Anhalt, and, at a later period, the reigning
dynasty of Prussia, passed over into the Reformed Church.
Hereafter there were two distinct and separate Confessions
in Protestant Germany, the Lutheran and the Reformed,
which in the Westphalia Treaty were formally recognized on
a basis of legal equality. The Lutheran Church might have
sustained still greater loss if Melanchthon had openly pro
fessed his essential agreement with Calvin. But the mag
netic power of Luther's name and personality, and of his
great work saved his doctrine of the Eucharist and the
ubiquity of Christ's body, which was finally formulated and
fixed in the Formula of Concord (1577).

Joachim Westphal (1510-1574), a rigid Lutheran minister
and afterwards superintendent at Hamburg, who inherited

1 Opera, IX. 47.

§ 132. THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSIES. 661

the intolerance and violent temper, but none of the genius
and generosity of Luther, wrote, without provocation, a tract
against the " Zurich Consensus," and against Calvin and
Peter Martyr, in 1552. He aimed indirectly at the Philip-
pis ts (Melanchthonians), who agreed with the Calvinistic
theory of the Eucharist without openly confessing it, and
who for this reason were afterwards called Crypto-Calvinists.
He had previously attacked Melanchthon, his teacher and
benefactor, and compared his conduct in the Interim contro
versy with Aaron's worship of the golden calf.1 He taught
that the very body of Christ was in the bread substantially,
that it was ubiquitous, though illocal (extra locum), and that
it was partaken by Judas no less than by Peter. He made
no distinction between Calvin and Zwingli. He treats as
" sacramentarians " and heretics all those who denied the
corporal presence, the oral manducation, and the literal eating
of Christ's body with the teeth, even by unbelievers. He
charges them with holding no less than twenty-eight con
flicting opinions on the words of institution, quoting extracts
from Carls tadt, Zwingli, (Ecolampadius, Bucer, a Lasco,
Bullinger, Peter Martyr, Schwenkfeld, and chiefly from
Calvin. But nearly all these opinions are essentially the
same, and that of Carlstadt was never adopted by any Church
or any Reformed theologian.2 He speaks of their godless
perversion of the Scriptures, and even their "satanic blas
phemies." He declared that they ought to be refuted by the
rod of the magistrates rather than by the pen.3

1 Historia vituli aurei Aaronis Exod. 32 ad nostra tempora et controversias
accommodata, Magdeburg, 1549.

2 See the remarks of the Strassburg editors in vol. IX. Proleg. p. x. There
are really only two Reformed theories on the Eucharist — the Zwinglian and
the Calvinistic, and the latter was embodied in all the Reformed Confessions.
A Lutheran polemic of the seventeenth century conclusively proved to his
own satisfaction that "the cursed Calvinistic heretics hold six hundred and
sixty-six theses in common with the Turks ! "

3 Farrago confusanearum et inter se dissidentium optnionum de Cocna Domini
ex Sacramentariorum libris congesta. Magdeburg, 1552 (a small pamphlet, with
a preface).

662 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

As his first attack was ignored by the Swiss, he wrote
another and larger tract in 1553, in which he proved the
Lutheran view chiefly from 1 Cor. 11 : 29, 30, and urged
the Lutherans to resist the progress of the Zwinglian or, as
it was now called, Calvinistic heresy.1

The style and taste of his polemic may be inferred from
his calling Bullinger "the bull of Zurich," Calvin "the calf
of Geneva," and a Lasco " the Polish bear."

About the same time, in the autumn and winter of 1553,
John a Lasco, a Polish nobleman, a friend of Calvin, and
minister of a foreign Reformed congregation in London, fled
with one hundred and seventy-five Protestants from persecu
tion under the bloody Mary, and sought shelter on Danish
and German shores ; but was refused even a temporary refuge
in -cold winter at Helsingor, Copenhagen, Rostock, Liibeck,
and Hamburg (though they found it at last in East Fries-
land). Westphal denounced these noble men as martyrs of
the devil, enraged the people against them, and gloried in
the inhuman cruelty as an act of faith.2

This conduct roused the Swiss to self-defence. Bullingei
vindicated the orthodoxy of the Zurich ministry with his
usual moderation. Calvin heard of the treatment of the
refugees through a letter of Peter Martyr, then at Strassburg,

1 Recta fides de Coena Domini, Magdeburg, 1553. This was followed by
Collectanea sententiarum Aurelil Auqustini de Coena Domini, Ratisbon, 1555 (the
preface is dated September, 1554), and Fides Cyrilli de prcesentia corporis et
sanquinis Christi, Frankfort, 1555.

2 A full account in Joh. Utenhoven (who accompanied a Lasco), Simplex
et fidelis narratio, etc. Basil., 1560. The spirit of this rare book may be
judged from the concluding sentence (quoted by Dalton who examined a copy
in Cracow) : " In conclusion let us pray all the pious for Christ's sake not to
harbor any hatred against those who have thus persecuted us in our affliction,
and not to call fire from heaven as James and John did for the refusal of
hospitality, but rather to pray for them that they may repent and be saved."
See extracts in Planck, I.e., 36 sqq., and H. Dalton, Johannes a Lasco (Gotlia,
1881), 427 sqq. Monckeberg attempts to apologize for Westphal, but with
out effect. Dorner says (I.e., 401, note) : " Westphal wird zum Selbstankldger
in der Vorrede zu der Collectanea aus Augustin, r'uhmt die That der Unbarmherzig-
keit als eine gute That, und stellt Nebuchadnezzar als Vorbild fur solche Falle auf."

§ 132. THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSIES. 663

in May, 1554, and took up his sharp and racy pen in three
successive pamphlets. He at first wished to issue a joint
remonstrance of the Swiss Churches, and sent a hasty draft
to Bullinger. But Zurich, Basel, and Bern found it too
severe, and refused to sign it. He corrected the draft,
and published it in his own name under the title " Defence
of the Sound and Orthodox Doctrine on the Sacraments," as
laid down in the Consensus Tigurinus (Geneva, 1555). He
treated Westphal with sovereign contempt, without naming
him. Westphal replied in a tract thrice as large, complain
ing of the unworthy treatment, denying the intention of
disturbing the peace of the Church, but repeating his charges
against the Sacramentarians.1 Calvin, after some hesitation,
prepared a " Second Defence," now openly directed " contra
Westphali calumnias" and published it, with a preface to the
Churches of Germany, in January, 1556, Westphal replied
in two writings, one against Calvin and one against a Lasco,
and sent letters to the leading cities of North Germany,
urging them to unite in an orthodox Lutheran Confession
against the Zurich Consensus. He received twenty-five
responses,- and issued them at Magdeburg, 1557. He also
reprinted Melanchthon's former opinions on the real presence
(Hamburg, 1557). To meet these different assaults Calvin
issued his " Last Admonition to Westphal" (1557). West
phal continued the controversy, but Calvin kept silent and
handed him over to Beza.

Besides these main contestants several others took part in
the fight: on the Lutheran side, Timan, Schnepf, Alberus,
Gallus, Judex, Brenz, Andrese, etc. ; on the Reformed side,
a Lasco, Ochino, Polanus, Bibliander, and Beza.

Calvin indignantly rebuked the "rude and barbarous
insults " to persecuted members of Christ, and characterized
the ultra-Lutherans as men who would rather have peace

1 Adversus cujusdam Sacramentarii falsam criminationem justa defensio,
Frankfort, 1555.

664 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

with the Turks and Papists than with Swiss Christians. He
called them "apes of Luther." He triumphantly vindicated
against misrepresentations and objections his doctrine of the
spiritual real presence of Christ, and the sealing communi
cation of the life-giving virtue of his body in heaven to the
believer through the power of the Holy Spirit.

He might have defended his doctrine even more effectually
if he had restrained his wrath and followed the brotherly
advice of Bullinger, and even Farel, who exhorted him not
to imitate the violence of his opponent, to confine himself
to the thing, and to spare the person. But he wrote to
Farel (August, 1557) : " With regard to Westphal and the
rest it was difficult for me to control my temper and to
follow your advice. You call those ' brethren ' who, if that
name be offered to them by us, do not only reject, but exe
crate it. And how ridiculous should we appear in bandying
the name of brother with those who look upon us as the
worst of heretics." l

§ 133. Calvin and the Augsburg Confession. Melanchthon *s
Position in the Second Eucharistic Controversy.

Comp. HENRY, III. 335-339 and Beilage, pp. 102-110; the works on the
Augsburg Confession, and the biographies of Melanchthon.

During the progress of this controversy both parties
frequently appealed to the Augsburg Confession and to
Melanchthon. They were both right and both wrong ; for
there are two editions of the Confession, representing the
earlier and the later theories of its author on the Lord's
Supper. The original Augsburg Confession of 1530, in the
tenth article, teaches Luther's doctrine of the real presence
so clearly and strongly that even the Roman opponents did
not object to it.2 But from the time of the Wittenberg Con-

1 Opera, XVI. 552.

2 The CathoUca Refuted to Augustan(K Confessionis of Drs. Eck, Faber, and
Cochkeus says: " Dec.imus articnlus [of the Augsburg Confession] in verbis
niJu'l often (lit si modo credant [the Lutheran signers], sub qualibet specie integrum
Christum esse."

§ 133. CALVIN AND THE AUGSBUKG CONFESSION. 665-

cordia in 1536, 01 even earlier,1 Melanchthon began to change
his view on the real presence as well as his view on pre
destination and free-will ; in the former he approached Calvin,,
in the latter he departed from him. He embodied the former
change in the Altered Confession of 1540, without official
authority, yet in good faith, as the author of the document,
and in the conviction that he represented public sentiment,
since Luther himself had moderated his opposition to the
Swiss by assenting to the Wittenberg Concordia.2 The
altered edition was made the basis of negotiations witli
the Romanists at the Colloquies of Worms and Ratisbon in
1541, and at the later Colloquies in 1546 and 1557. It was
printed (with the title and preface of the Invariata) in the-
first collection of the symbolical books of the Lutheran Church
(Corpus Doctrince Plulippicum) in 1559; it was expressly
approved by the Lutheran princes at the Convention of
Naumburg in 1561, after Melanchthon's death, as an improved
modification and authentic interpretation of the Confession,
and was adhered to by the Melanchthonians and the Reformed
even after the adoption of the Book of Concord (1580).
The text in the two editions is as follows : —

ED. 1530. ED. 1540.

" De Cftna Domini docent, quod cor- " De Cosna Domini docent, quod

pus et sanguis Christi VERB ADSINT CUM PANE ET VINO vere EXHIHEANTUR

[the German text adds : imter der Ge- corpus et sanguis Christi vescentibus in

stalt des Brots und \Veins~], et DISTIUB- Coena Domini."
UANTUR vescentibus in Cccna Domini;

ET IMPROBANT SECUS DOCENTES." [In

the German text : " Derhalben icird
auch die Gegenlehre verworfen."^

1 Comp. his letters to Schnepf, Agricola, and Brenz, from the years 1534
and 1535; Matthes, Leben Melanchthons, p. 349; C. Schmidt, Philipp Melanch
thon, pp. 580 sqq.

2 Luther did not object to the change. When he broke out more fiercely
than ever against the Swiss, in his "Short Confession on the Holy Sacrament"
(1544), Melanchthon, in a letter to Bullinger, called this book not unjustly
" atrocissimum scripturn." See vol. VI. 654 sq.

666 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

ED. 1530. ED. 1540.

" Concerning the Lord's Supper, " Concerning the Lord's Supper,

they teach that the body and blood they teach that with bread and wine

of Christ are truly present [under the are truly exhibited the body and blood

form of bread and wine], and are of Christ to those who eat in tho

distributed to those that eat in the Lord's Supper."

Lord's Supper. And they disapprove [Disapproval of dissenting views

of those who teach otherwise." [In the is omitted.]
German text : " Wherefore also the
opposite doctrine is rejected."^

It is to this revised edition of the document, and to its
still living author, that Calvin confidently appealed.

" In regard to the Confession of Augsburg," he says in his Last Admoni
tion to Westphal, "my answer is, that, as it was published at Ratisbon (1541),
it does not contain a word contrary to our doctrine.1 If there is any ambigu
ity in its meaning, there cannot be a more competent interpreter than its
author, to whom, as his due, all pious and learned men will readily pay this
honor. To him I boldly appeal ; and thus Westphal with his vile garrulity
lies prostrate. ... If Joachim wishes once for all to rid himself of all
trouble and put an end to controversy, let him extract one word in his favor
from Philip's lips. The means of access are open, and the journey is not so
very laborious, to visit one of whose consent he boasts so loftily, and with
whom lie may thus have familiar intercourse. If I shall be found to have
used Philip's name rashly, there is no stamp of ignominy to which I am not
willing to submit.

"The passage which Westphal quotes, it is not mine to refute, nor do
I regard what, during the first conflict, before the matter was clearly and
lucidly explained, the importunity of some may have extorted from one who
was then too backward in giving a denial. It were too harsh to lay it down
as a law on literary men, that after they have given a specimen of their
talent and learning, they are never after to go beyond it in the course of
their lives. Assuredly, whosoever shall say that Philip has added nothing
by the labor of forty years, does great wrong to him individually, and to the
whole Church.

"The only thing I said, and, if need be, a hundred times repeat, is, that
in this matter Philip can no more be torn from me than he can from his own
bowels.- But although fearing the thunder which threatened to burst from
violent men (those who know the boisterous blasts of Luther understand what

1 " De Confessions Augustana sic respondeo, verbulum in ea, qualis Ratisponce
edita fuit, non exstare doctrines nostrce, contrarnnn." Opera, IX. 148. Comp. his
letter to Schalling at Ratisbon, March, 1557, quoted on p. 377, note (Opera,
XVI. 430).

2 " Solum quod dixi et quidem centies si opus sit, confirmo, non magis a me
Philippum quam a propriis visceribus in hac causa posse divelli." Opera, IX. 149.

§ 133. CALVIN AND THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 667

I mean), he did not always speak out openly as I could have wished, there
is no reason why Westphal, while pretending differently, should indirectly
charge him with having begun to incline to us only after Luther was dead.
For when more than seventeen years ago we conferred together on this point
of doctrine, at our first meeting, not a syllable required to be changed.1 Nor
should I omit to mention Gaspar Cruciger, who, from his excellent talents
and learning, stood, next after Philip, highest in Luther's estimation, and far
beyond all others. He so cordially embraced what Westphal now impugns,
that nothing can be imagined more perfectly accordant than our opinions.

" tfut if there is still any doubt as to Philip, do I not make a sufficient
offer when I wait silent and confident for his answer, assured that it will make
manifest the dishonesty which has falsely sheltered itself under the vener
able name of that most excellent man ? "

Calvin urged Melanchthon repeatedly to declare openly
his view on the points in controversy. In a letter of March
5, 1555, after thanking him for his approval of the condemna
tion of Servetus, he says: "About 'the bread-worship' (TTC/H
T>5? a/oroXarpe/a?), your most intimate opinion has long since
been known to me, which you do not even dissemble in your
letter. But your too great slowness displeases me, by which
the madness of those whom you see rushing on to the
destruction of the Church, is not only kept up, but from day
to day increased." Melanchthon answered, May 12, 1555:
" I have determined to reply simply and without ambiguity,
and I judge that I owe that work to God and the Church,
nor at the age to which I have arrived, do I fear either exile
or other dangers." On August 23 of the same year, Calvin
expressed his gratification with this answer and wrote : " I
entreat you to discharge, as soon as you can, the debt which
you acknowledge you owe to God and the Church." He
adds with undue severity: "If this warning, like a cock
crowing rather late and out of season, do not awaken you,
all will cry out with justice that you are a sluggard. Fare
well, most distinguished sir, whom I venerate from the
heart." In another letter of Aug. 3, 1557, he complains of

1 He refers to their meeting at Frankfurt, which took place in 1539, seven
years before Luther's death and five years before his last book against the
Sacramentarians. See above, § 90, pp. 388 sq.

668 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

the silence of three years and apologizes for the severity
of his last letter, but urges him again to come out, like a man,
and to refute the charge of slavish timidity. "I do not
think," he says, " you need to be reminded by many words,
how necessary it is for you to hasten to wipe out this blot
from your character." He proposes that Melanchthon should
induce the Lutheran princes to convene a peaceful confer
ence of both parties at Strassburg, or Tubingen, or Heidel
berg, or Frankfurt, and attend the conference in person with
some pious, upright, and moderate men. "If you class me,"
he concludes, "in the number of such men, no necessity, how
ever pressing, will prevent me from putting up this as my
chief vow, that before the Lord gather us into his heavenly
kingdom I may yet be permitted to enjoy on earth, a most
delightful interview with you, and feel some alleviation of my
grief by deploring along with you the evils which we cannot
remedy." In his last extant letter to Melanchthon, dated
Nov. 19, 1558, Calvin alludes once more to the eucharistic
controversy, but in a very gentle spirit, assuring him that
he will never allow anything to alienate his mind "from that
holy friendship and respect which I have vowed to you. . . .
Whatever may happen, let us cultivate with sincerity a fra
ternal affection towards each other, the ties of which no
wiles of Satan shall ever burst asunder."

Melanchthon would have done better for his own fame if,
instead of approving the execution of Servetus, he had openly
supported Calvin in the conflict with Westphal. But he
was weary of the rabies tlieologorum, and declined to take an
active part in the bitter strife on "bread-worship," as he
called the notion of those who were not contented with the
presence of the body of Christ in the sacramental use, but
insisted upon its presence in and under the bread. He knew
what kind of men he had to deal with. He knew that the
court of Saxony, from a sense of honor, would not allow an
open departure from Luther's doctrine. Prudence, timidity,

§ 133. CALVIN AND THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 669

and respect for the memory of Luther were the mingled
motives of his silence. He was aware of his natural weak
ness, and confessed in a letter to Christopher von Carlowitz,
in 1548: "I am, perhaps, by nature of a somewhat servile
disposition, and I have before endured an altogether unseemly
servitude ; as Luther more frequently obeyed his tempera
ment, in which was no little contentiousness, than he regarded
his own dignity and the common good."

But in his private correspondence he did not conceal his
real sentiments, his disapproval of " bread-worship " and of
the doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's body. His last utter
ance on the subject was in answer to the request of Elector
Frederick III. of the Palatinate, who tried to conciliate the
parties in the fierce eucharistic controversy at Heidelberg.
Melanchthon warned against scholastic subtleties and com
mended moderation, peace, biblical simplicity, and the use of
Paul's words that "the bread which we break is the commun
ion of tiie body of Christ" (1 Cor. 10:16), not "changed
into," nor the "substantial," nor the "true" body. He gave
this counsel on the fir^t of Xovember, 1559. A few months
afterwards lie died (April IT, 1560).

The result was that the Elector deposed the leaders of
both parties, Heshusius and Klebitz, called distinguished
foreign divines to the University, and entrusted Zacharias
Ursinus (a pupil of Melanchthon) and Caspar Olevianus (a
pupil of Calvin) with the task of composing the Heidelberg
or Palatinate Catechism, which was published Jan. 19, 1563.
It became the principal symbolical book of the German and
Dutch branches of the Reformed Church. It gives clear and

strong expression to the Calvinistic-Melanchthonian theory
of the spiritual real presence, and teaches the doctrine of
election, but without a word on reprobation and preterition.
In both respects it is the best expression of the genius and
final doctrinal position of Melanchthon, who was himself a
native of the Palatinate.

670 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

NOTES. MELANCHTHON'S LAST WORDS ON THE EUCHARIST.

Letter to Calvin, Oct. 14, 1554. Melanchthon approves of the execution
of Servetus and continues : " Quod in proximis literis me hortaris, ut reprimam
ineruditos clamores illorum, qui renovant certamen irepl aproharpeias, scito, quosdam
prcecipue odio mei earn disputationeni movere, ut habeant plausibilem causam ad
me opprimendum." He expresses the hope to discuss this subject with him
once more before his death. (Mel's Opera in the Corp. Reform. VIII. 302 sq.)

To Hardenberg, pastor in Bremen, who was persecuted for resisting the
doctrine of ubiquity, he wrote, May 9, 1557 (ibid. IX. 154) : " Crescit, ut vides,
non modo certamen, sed etiam rabies in scriptoribus, qui apro\arpeiav stabiliunt."

Letter to Mordeisen, counsellor of the Elector of Saxonj, Nov. 15, 1557
(ibid. IX. 374) : " Si mihi concedetis, ut in alio loco vivam, respondebo illis indoctis
sycophantis et vere et graviter, et dicam utilia ecclesio?"

One of his last utterances is reported by Peucer, his son-in-law, " ex arcanis
sermonibus Dom. Philippi," in an autograph of Jan. 3, 1561 (vol. IX. 1088-
1090). Here Melanchthon asserts the real presence, but declines to describe
the mode, and rejects the ubiquity of Christ's body. He also admits the
figurative sense of the words of institution, which Luther so persistently
denied. " Consideranda est" he says, " interpretatio verborum Christi, quce ab
aliis Kara TO pnr6v, ab aliis Kara rp6trov accipiuntur. Nee sunt plures interpreta-
tiones quam duce. Posterior Pauli est sine omni dubio, qui rocat Koivwiav corporis
panem, et aperte testatur, OVK e^icrdvai rfjs (pvaews ra dp&fjieva <ru/u.l3o\a. ERGO
NECESSE EST ADMiTTi rp6irov. Cum hac consentit vetustas Grceca et Latina.
Grceci <rv/j.&o\a avrirvwa, Latini ' signa ' et 'Jiguras ' vacant res externas et in usu
corpus et sanguinem, ut discernant hunc sacrum et mysticum cibum a prqfano, et
admoneant Ecclesiam de re signata, quce vere exhibetur et applicatur credentibus,
et dicunt esse si/mbola rov ovrus (rw/maros, contra Entychem, ut sciat Ecclesia, non
esse inania symbola aut notas tantum professions, sed symbola rerum prcesentium
Christi vere prwsentis et efficacis et impertientis atque applicants credentibus
promissa beneficia."

From Melanchthon's Judicium de controversia cosnce Domini ad illustr. Prin-
cipem ac D. D. Fridericum, Comitem Palatinum Rheni, Electorem, dated Nov. 1,
1559 (IX. 960 sqq.) : "Non difficile, sed periculosum est respondere. Dicam
tamen, quce nunc de controversia illius loci monere possum : et oro Filium Dei, ut
et consilia et eventus gubernet. Non dubium est de controversia Coence ingentia
certamina et bella in toto orbe terrarum secutura esse: quia mundus dat pcenas
idololatrice, et aliorum peccatorum. Ideo petamus, ut Filius Dei nos doceat et guber
net. Cum autem ubique multi sint infirmi, et nondum institute in doctrina Ecclesice,
imo confirmati in erroribus : necesse est initio habere rationem infirmorum.

" Probo igitur cons ilium Illustrissimi E/ectoris, quod rixantibus utrinque manda-
vit silentium ne distractio fiat in tenera Ecclesia, et infirmi turbentur in illo loco, et
vicinia : et optarim rixatores in utraque parte abesse. Secundo, remotis contentiosis,
prodest reliquos de una forma verborum convenire. Et in hac controversia optimum
esset retinere verba Pauli: lPanis quern frangimus, Koivcavia tcrrl rov au^aros.' Et
copiose de fructu coznce dicendum est, ut invitentur homines ad amorem hujus pigno-
ris, et crebrum usum. Et vocabulum noivuvia declarandum est.

§ 134. CALVIN AND HESHUSIUS. 671

" Non dicit [Paulus], mutari naturam panis, ut Papistcc dicunt : non dicit, ut
BREMENSES, panem esse substantiate corpus Christi. Non dicit, ut HESHUSIUS,
panem esse verum corpus Christi : sed esse KOIVWVIO.V, id est, hoc, quo Jit consocia-
tio cum corpore Christi : quw Jit in usu, et quidem non sine cogitations, ut cum
mures panem rodunt. . . .

" Sed hanc veram et simplicem doctrinam defructu, nominant quidam cothurnos :
et postulant did, an sit corpus in pane, aut speciebus panis '? Quasi vero Sacra-
mentum propter panem et illam Papisticam adorationem institutum sit. Postea
Jingunt, quomodo includant pani : alii conversionem , alii transubstantiationem, alii
ubiquitatem excogitarunt. Hcec portentosa omnia ignota sunt eruditce vetustati. . . .

"Ac maneo in hac sententia : Contentiones utrinque prohibend as esse, et forma
verborum una et simili utendum esse. Si quibus hcec non placent, nee vohmt ad
communionem accedere, his permittatur, ut suo judicio utantur, modo nonjiant dis-
tractiones in populo.

" Oro autem filium Dei, Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum sedentem ad dex-
tram ceterni patris, et colligentem ceternam Ecclesiam voce Evangelii, ut nos doceat,
gubernet, et protegat. Opto etiam, ut aliquando in pia Synodo de omnibus contro
versies horum temporum deliberetur."

§ 134. Calvin and ffeshusius.

I. HESHUSIUS : De Prcesentia Corporis Christi in Ccena Domini contra Sacra-

mentarios. "Written in 1559, first published at Jena, 1560 (and also at
Magdeburg and Nurnberg, 1561). Defensio verce, et sacrce confessionis de
vera Prcesentia Corporis Christi in Ccena Domini adversus calumnias Calvini,
Boquini, Bezce, et Clebitii. Magdeburg, 1562.

II. CALVINUS : Dilucida Explicatio sance Doctrince de vera Participations Carnis
et Sanguinis Christi in Sacra Coe.no, ad discutiendas Heshusii nebulas. Gene-
vae, 1561. Also in French. Opera, IX. 457-524. Comp. Proleg. xli-xliii.
— BEZA wrote two tracts against Heshusius : KpewQayia sive Ci/chps, etc.,
and Abstersio calumniarum quibus Calvinus aspersus est ab Heshusio. Gen.,
1561. BOQUIX and KLEBITZ likewise opposed him.

III. J. G. LEUCKFELD: Historia Heshusiana. Quedlinburg, 1716. — T. H.
WILKENS : Tilemann Hesshusen, ein Streittheologe der Luther skirc he. Leip
zig, I860. — C. SCHMIDT: Philipp Melanchthon. Elberfeld, 1861, pp. 639
sqq. — HACKEXSCHMIDT, Art. "Hesshusen" in Herzog2, VI. 75-79. —
HENRY, III. 339-344, and Beilage, 221. Comp. also PLANCK, HEPPK,
G. FRANK, and the extensive literature on the Reformation in the Palati
nate and the history of the Heidelberg Catechism (noticed in SCHAFF'S
Creeds of Christendom, I. 529-531).

Tilemann Heshusius (in German Hesshus or Hesshusen)
was born in 1527 at Niederwesel in the duchy of Cleves, and
died at Helmstadt in 1588. He was one of the most ener
getic and pugnacious champions of scholastic orthodoxy who

672 THE REFORMATION IN FKENCH SWITZERLAND.

outluthered Luther and outpoped the pope.1 He identified
piety with orthodoxy, and orthodoxy with illocal con-in-
substantiation,2 or "bread-worship," to use Melanchthon's
expression. He occupied influential positions at Gosslar,
Rostock, Heidelberg, Bremen, Magdeburg, Zweibriicken,
Jena, and Prussia; but with his turbulent disposition he
stirred up strife everywhere, used the power of excommuni
cation very freely, and was himself no less than seven times
deposed from office and expelled. He quarrelled also with
his friends Flacius, Wigand, and Chemnitz. But while he
tenaciously defended the literal eating of Christ's body by
unbelievers as well as believers, he dissented from Westphal's
coarse and revolting notion of a chewing of Christ's body
with the teeth, and confined himself to the manducatio oralis,
He rejected also the doctrine of ubiquity, and found fault
with its introduction into the Formula of Concord.3

Heshusius was originally a pupil and table-companion of
Melanchthon, and agreed with his moderate opinions, but,
like Westphal and Flacius, he became an ungrateful enemy

1 The other leaders of the anti-Melanchthonian ultra-Lutheranism wer«
Amsdorf (d. 1565), Westphal (d. 1574), Flacius (d. 1575), Judex (d. 1574),
Jimann (d. 1557), Gallus (d. 1570), and Wigand (d. 1587). The chief pupili
of Melanchthon were Eber (d. 1569), Cruciger (d. 1548) and his son
(d. 1575), Camerarius (d. 1574), Peucer, Krell, Pezel, Pfeffinger, Harden-
berg, Major, Menius. One of the noblest traits of Luther was his hearty
appreciation of Melanchthon to the end of his life, notwithstanding the
marked difference. His narrow followers entirely lacked this element of
liberality and generosity. Comp. Dorner, G-eschichte der protest. Theologie,
pp. 330 sqq.

2 I coin this word from the Lutheran formula cum, in, and sub pane et vino.
The usual designation " consubstantiation " is repudiated by Lutherans in th«
sense of impanation or local inclusion.

3 Planck and Heppe give him a bad character, and charge him with inor
dinate ambition and avarice. According to Heppe he was " einer der wider*
wdrtigsten lutherischen Pfaffen seiner Zeit." Hackenschmidt judges him more
mildly as a consistent advocate of the tendency which makes no distinction
between religion and theology, church authority and police force. The
Strassburg editors (Opera, IX. Prol. p. xli.) call him a " vir imperiosus et
<t>i\ov€iK6Ta.Tos." Bullinger compared him to the Homeric Thersites, who was
despised for scurrility.

§ 134. CALVIN AND HESHUSiUS. 673

of his benefactor. He was recommended by him to a profes
sorship at Heidelberg and the general superintendency of
the Lutheran Church in the Palatinate on the Rhine (1558).
Here he first appeared as a champion of the strict Lutheran
theory of the substantial presence, and attacked " the Sacra-
mentarians " in a book " On the Presence of the Body of
Christ in the Lord's Supper." He quarrelled with his col
leagues, especially with Deacon Klebitz, who was a Melanch-
thonian, but no less violent and pugnacious. He even tried
to wrest the eucharistic cup from him at the altar. He
excommunicated him because he would not admit the in and
sub, but only the cum (jpane et vino), in the scholastic formula
of the Lutheran doctrine of the real presence. Elector
Frederick III., called the Pious, restored peace by dismissing
both Heshusius and Klebitz (Sept. 16, 1559), with the
approval of Melanchthon. He afterwards ordered the prep
aration of the Heidelberg Catechism, and introduced the
Reformed Church into the Palatinate, 1563.1

On the other hand, the Lutheran clergy of Wurtemberg,
under the lead of Brenz, in a synod at Stuttgart, gave the
doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's body, which Luther had
taught, but which Melanchthon had rejected, symbolical
authority for Wurtemberg (Dec. 19, 1559).2

Calvin received the book of Heshusius from Bullinger,
who advised him to answer the arguments, but to avoid
personalities.3 He hesitated for a while, and wrote to
Olevianus (November, 1560) : " The loquacity of that brawler
is too absurd to excite my anger, and I have not yet decided
whether I shall answer him, I am weary of so many pam
phlets, and shall certainly not think his follies worthy of
many days' labor. But I have composed a brief analysis of
this controversy, which will, perhaps, be shortly published."

1 See § 133, p. 669. 2 Planck, vol. V. Part II. 383 sqq.

8 He wrote to him : " Oro, si statin' sti respondere, respondeas ad argumenta,
diligenter prefer ita persona ilia T her sit is honierici"

674 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

It was one of his last controversial pamphlets and appeared
in 1561.

In the beginning of his response he made that most touch
ing allusion to his departed friend Melanchthon, which
we have noticed in another connection.1 What a contrast
between this noble tribute of unbroken friendship and the
mean ingratitude of Heshusius, who most violently attacked
Melanchthon's memory immediately after his death.2

Calvin reiterates and vindicates the several points brought
out in the controversy with Westphal, and refutes the argu
ments of Heshusius from the Scripture and the Fathers with
his wonted intellectual vigor and learning, seasoned with
pepper and salt. He compares him to an ape clothed in
purple, and to an ass in a lion's skin. The following are the
chief passages : —

" Heshusius bewails the vast barbarism which appears to be impending,
as if any greater or worse barbarism were to be feared than that from him
and his fellows. To go no further for proof, let the reader consider how
fiercely he sneers and tears at his master, Philip Melanchthon, whose memory
he ought sacredly to revere. . . . Such is the pious gratitude of the scholar,
not only towards the teacher to whom he owes whatever little learning he
may possess, but towards a man who has deserved so highly of the whole
Church. . . .

"Though there is some show about him, he does nothing more by his mag
niloquence than vend the old follies and frivolities of Westphal and his fel
lows. He harangues loftily on the omnipotence of God, on putting implicit
faith in his word, and subduing human reason, in terms he may have learned
from other sources, of which I believe myself also to be one. I have no
doubt, from his childish stolidity of glorying, that he imagines himself to
combine the qualities of Melanchthon and Luther. From the one he ineptly
borrows flowers, and having no better way of rivalling the vehemence of the
other, he substitutes bombast and sound. . . .

" Westphal boldly affirms that the body of Christ is chewed by the teeth,
and confirms it by quoting with approbation the recantation of Berengar, as
given by Gratian. This does not please Heshusius, who insists that it is
eaten by the mouth but not touched by the teeth, and greatly disproves those
gross modes of eating. . . .

"Heshusius argues that if the body of Christ is in heaven, it is not in the
Supper, and that instead of him we have only a symbol. As if, forsooth,

1 See § 90, p. 398.

2 Responsio ad pnejudicium Philippi Melanchthonis, 1500.

§ 134. CALVIN AND HESHUSIUS. 675

the Supper were not, to the true worshippers of God, a heavenly action, or,
as it were, a vehicle which carries them above the world. But what is this
to Heshusius, who not only halts on the earth, but drives his nose as far as
he can into the mud ? Paul teaches that in baptism we put on Christ (Gal.
3:27). How acutely will Heshusius argue that this cannot be if Christ
remain in heaven? When Paul spoke thus it never occurred to him that
Christ must be brought down from heaven, because he knew that he is
united to us in a different manner, and that his blood is not less present to
cleanse our souls than water to cleanse our bodies. ... Of a similar nature
is his objection that the body is not received truly if it is received symboli
cally ; as if by a true symbol we excluded the exhibition of the reality.

" Some are suspicious of the term faith, as if it overthrew the reality and
the effect. But we ought to view it far otherwise, viz. that the only way in
which we are conjoined to Christ is by raising our minds above the world.
Accordingly, the bond of our union with Christ is faith, which raises us up
wards, and casts its anchor in heaven, so that instead of subjecting Christ
to the figments of our reason, we seek him above in his glory.

" This furnishes the best method of settling a dispute to which I adverted,
viz. whether believers alone receive Christ, or all, without exception, to
whom the symbols of bread and wine are distributed, receive him ? Correct
and clear is the solution which I have given: Christ offers his body and blood
to all in general; but as unbelievers bar the entrance of his liberality, they
do not receive what is offered. It must not, however, be inferred from this
that when they reject what is given, they either make void the grace of
Christ, or detract in any respect from the efficacy of the sacrament. The
Supper does not, through their ingratitude, change its nature, nor does the
bread, considered as an earnest or pledge given by Christ, become profane,
so as not to differ at all from common bread, but it still truly testifies com
munion with THE FLESH AND BLOOD OF CHRIST."

This is the conclusion of Calvin's last deliverance on the
vexed subject of the sacrament. For the rest he handed his
opponent over to Beza, who answered the " Defence " of
Heshusius with two sharp and learned tracts.

The eucharistic controversy kindled by Westphal and
Klebitz was conducted in different parts of Germany with
incredible bigotry, passion, and superstition. In Bremen,
John Timann fought for the carnal presence, and insisted
upon the ubiquity of Christ's body as a settled dogma (1555) ;
while Albert Hardenberg, a friend of Melanchthon, opposed
it, and was banished (1560) ; but a reaction took place after
wards, and Bremen became a stronghold of the Reformed
Confession in Northern Germany.

676 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

§ 135. Calvin and the Astrologers.

CALVIN : Advertissement contre I'astrologie qu'on appelle justiciaire .• el autres curi-
osite's qui regnent aujourdhuis dans le monde. Geneve, 1549 (55 pp.)- The
French text is reprinted in Opera, vol. VII. 509-542. Admonitio adversus
astrologiam quam judiciariam vacant; aliasque prceterea curiositates nonnullas,
quce hodie in universam fere orbem grassantur, 1549. The Latin translation
is by Fr. Hottman, sieur de Villiers, at that time secretary of Calvin,
who dictated to him the work in French. The Latin text is reprinted in
the Amsterdam ed., vol. IX. 500-509. An English translation : An
Admonition against Astrology, Judicial! and other curiosities that reigne now
in the world, by Goddred Gylby, appeared in London without date, and
is mentioned by HENRY, III. Beil. 212. Comp. HENRY, II. 391 sq.

Calvin's clear, acute, and independent intellect was in
advance of the crude superstitions of his age. He wrote
a warning against judicial astrology * or divination, which
presumes to pronounce judgment upon a man's character
or destiny as written in the stars. This spurious science,
which had wandered from Babylon2 to ancient Rome and
from heathen Rome to the Christian Church, flourished
especially in Italy and France at the very time when other
superstitions were shaken to the base. Several popes of the
Renaissance — Sixtus IV., Julius II., Leo X., Paul III. —
were addicted to it, but Pico della Mirandola wrote a book
against it. King Francis I. dismissed his physician because
he was not sufficiently skilled in this science. The Duchess
Renata of Ferrara consulted, even in her later years, the
astrologer Luc Guaric. The court of Catherine de Medici
made extensive use of this and other black arts, so that the
Church and the State had to interfere.

But more remarkable is the fact that such an enlightened
scholar as Melanchthon should have anxiously watched the
constellations for their supposed bearing upon human events.
Lelio Sozini was at a loss to know whether Melanchthon

1 Astrologia judiciaria as distinct from astrologia naturalis, or simply
astrologia.

2 Hence " Chaldcei," " mathematici," " astrologi," were identical terms.

§ 135. CALVIN AND THE ASTROLOGERS. 677

depended most on the stars, or on their Maker and Ruler.1
In this respect Luther, notwithstanding his strong belief in
witchcraft and personal encounters with the devil, was in ad
vance of his more learned friend, and refuted his astrologi
cal, calculation of the nativity of Cicero with the Scripture
fact of Esau's and Jacob's birth in the same hour. Yet he
regarded the comets, or u harlot stars," as he called them,
as tokens of God's wrath, or as works of the devil. Zwingli
saw in Halley's comet, which appeared a few weeks before
the disaster of Cappel, a sign of war and of his own death.
The independent and heretical Servetus believed and prac
tised astrology and wrote a defence of it (Apologetica Dis-
ceptatio pro Astrologia).

Nothing of this kind is found in Calvin. He denounced
the attempt to reveal what God has hidden, and to seek him
outside of his revealed will, as an impious presumption and
a satanic delusion. It is right and proper, he maintains, to
study the laws and motions of the heavenly bodies.2 True
astronomy leads to the praise of God's wisdom and majesty ;
but astrology upsets the moral order. God is sovereign in his
gifts and not bound to any necessity of nature. He has fore
ordained all things by his eternal decree. Sometimes sixty
thousand men fall in one battle ; are they therefore born
under the same star? It is true the sun works upon the
earth, and heat and dearth, rain and storm come down from
the skies, but the wickedness of man proceeds from his will.
The astrologers appealed to the first chapter of Genesis and
to the prophet Jeremiah, who calls the stars signs, but Calvin
met them by quoting Isa. 44 : 25 : " who frustrateth the
tokens of the liars and maketh diviners mad." In conclusion

1 He wrote to Bullinger from Wittenberg, Aug. 20, 1550 : " Omnes ab uno
Mdanchthone [pendent], qui Astrologice judiciarice fuit addictus, et unus Hie ab
astrisne magis, an ab astrorum conditore ac domino pendeat, ignoro." Quoted by
Trechsel, Antitrin. II. 154, note 4.

2 Comp. Inst. I. ch. V. §§ 2 and 5, where he speaks highly of astronomy.

678 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

lie rejects the whole theory and practice of astrology as not
only superfluous and useless, but even pernicious.1

In the same tract he ridicules the alchemists, and incident
ally exhibits a considerable amount of secular learning.

Calvin discredited also the ingenious speculations of
Pseudo-Dionysius on the Celestial Hierarchy, as " mere bab
bling," adding that the author of that book, which was
sanctioned by Thomas Aquinas and Dante, spoke like a man
descended from heaven and giving an account of things he
had seen with his own eyes ; while Paul, who was caught up
to the third heaven, did not deem it lawful for man to utter
the secret things he had seen and heard.2

Calvin might have made his task easier if he had accepted
the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, which was known in
his time, though only as a hypothesis.3

But in this matter Calvin was no more in advance of his
age than any other divine. He believed that uthe whole
heaven moves around the earth," and declared it preposterous
to set the conjecture of a man against the authority of God,
who in the first chapter of Genesis had pointed out the rela
tion of the sun and moon to the earth. Luther speaks with
contempt of that upstart astronomer who wishes to reverse

1 " Curiositas non modo supervacanea et ad nullam rem utilis, verum etiam
exitiosa."

2 Inst. Bk. I. ch. XIV. § 4.

3 Copernicus finished his work De Orbium ccelestium Revolutionibus in 1530,
and dedicated it to the pope ; but it was not published till 1543, by Osiander
of Niirnberg, to whom he had given the manuscript, and who announced the
discovery in the preface as a mere hypothesis. He received a copy on his
death-bed at Frauenburg on the borders of Prussia and Poland. He was
probably a devout man, and is often credited with the prayer graven on his
tombstone: "I ask not the grace accorded to Paul; not that given to Peter;
give me only the favor which thou didst show to the thief on the cross"
("non parem Pnitll gratiam requiro" etc.) ; but this inscription is taken from
a poem of JEneas Sylvius De Passione Domini, and was put upon the monu
ment of Copernicus at Thorn by Dr. Melchior Pyrnesius (1589). Copernicus
is there represented with folded hands before a crucifix. See Prowe's work
on Copernicus, and Luthardt in the "Theol. Literaturblatt " for April 22,
1892 (p. 188).

§ 135. CALVIN AND THE ASTROLOGERS. 679

the entire science of astronomy and the sacred Scripture,
which tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still,
and not the earth. Melanchthon condemned the system in
his treatise on the " Elements of Physics," published six
years after the death of Copernicus, and cited against it the
witness of the eyes, which inform us that the heavens revolve
in the space of twenty-four hours ; and passages from the
Psalms and Ecclesiastes, which assert that the earth stands
fast and that the sun moves around it. He suggests severe
measures to restrain such impious teaching as that of
Copernicus.

But we must remember that the Copernican theory was
opposed by philosophers as well as theologians of all creeds
for nearly a hundred years, under the notion that it contra
dicts the testimony of the senses and the geocentric teaching
of the Bible. When towards the close of the sixteenth
century Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) became a convert to the
Copernican theory, and with his rude telescope discovered
the satellites of Jupiter and the phases of Venus, he was
denounced as a heretic, summoned before the Inquisition
at Rome and commanded by Bellarmin, the standard theolo
gian of the papacy, to abandon his error, and to teach that
the earth is the immovable centre of the universe (Feb. 26,
1616). The Congregation of the Index, moved by Pope
Paul V., rendered the decree that "the doctrine of the
double motion of the earth about its axis and about the sun
is false, and entirely contrary to the Holy Scripture," and
condemned the works of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo,
which affirm the motion of the earth. They remained on the
Index Purgatorius till the time of Benedict XIV. Even
after the triumph of the Copernican system in the scientific
world, there were respectable theologians, like John Owen
and John Wesley, who found it inconsistent with their theory
of inspiration, and rejected it as a delusive and arbitrary
hypothesis tending towards infidelity. " E pur si muove," the
earth does move for all that !

680 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

There can be no contradiction between the Bible and sci
ence ; for the Bible is not a book of astronomy or geology
or science ; but a book of religion, teaching the relation of
the world and man to God ; and when it touches upon the
heavenly bodies, it uses the phenomenal popular language
without pronouncing judgment for or against any scientific
theory.

CHAPTER XVI.

SERVETUS: HIS LIFE, OPINIONS, TRIAL, AND
EXECUTION.

§ 136. The Servetus Literature.

I. THEOLOGICAL WORKS OF MICHAEL SERVETUS.

DE TRINI-
TATIS ERRORIBUS

LIBRI SEPTEM.

PER MICHAELEM SERUETO, ALIAS
REUES AIJ ARAGONIA

HlSPANUM

ANNO MDXXXI.

This book was printed at Hagenau in the Alsace, but without the name
of the place, or of the publisher or printer. It contains 120 pages.

681

682

THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Dialogo \ rum de Trinitate \ Libri duo. \ De justicia regni Chri | sti, Capitula
quatuor. \ Per Michaelem iServeto, \ alias Reves, ab Aragonia \ Hispanum. \
Anno MDXXXII. Likewise printed at Hagenau. It concludes with
the words : " Perdat Dominus omnes ecclesice tyrannos. Amen. Finis."
These two works (bound in one volume in the copy before me) were incor
porated in revised shape in the Restitutio.

7U APOLOGIA.

CHRISTIANI

SMI RESTITV*

TIO.

J.o(ius ecckfa apojiolica eft ad fua limiita
vocatio^ in integrum nftituta cognitions Dei, fdei Cbri*
yZi, iujlificationis noflra , regenerations baptifmi ,- et cat
rue domini manJucationts. Rejlituto dtnique nobis rtt
gno, c&lefli) Babylonis impte captiuitate folutat et Ant
ticMJlo cum fuis penitus dejlrutto.

jiima quiedam, omnia in fc contetnplans, ct lucidc conti-
nens: mortalibus. olim velata, et per Chriftum iciiclata:
<]uametp!criqu€dixerunt, fuiffc ipfainmct animam ChrF-
lli. Sapicntiimnosverediriraus, infkr animx Chrifti, ri,
tionem diuinam dc Chrifto , pcrfonalem Chrifti fubftan-
tiam in Deo rducemcm,- et omnia continentcm. In e*
primaria luce efTe rcliqua omnia fecundario relucentia ,
vt in anima. tua relucent res alia;, qua: funt in ipfa. Vn-
de eft anirna noflra vcra imago illiris fapientiz De>, et ab
ea vere reformamr. Nee folum dicimu?, infapientiaDel
omnia rehicere, fed et inde haberc fuum e(Te, ex inuifi-
bilibus viDbilia fada. Diiimus item, earn a Chrifto fapien-
tiz lucem, et in angelos , et in animas noftras fe diffiin-
dcntem, velut fpeculum lucidum, varias nobis et ingelij
rcrum cognitioncs dnre. Atque ita quicquid angeli'viH
guam cognouerunt, a Chrifto acccperunt, ficut et nos. Be-
nediftus.ille fit in fecula fecuiorum, qui fapientiam fuam
jnfundens, hanc de fe nobis cognitionem dedit. Ben&n
difti Cnt in ipfo, qui ipfum vere credent eflk filium Dei,
ab arterno in Deo relucentem, e: in sternum regnantcm.
Amen. Araen.

M. S. V>
1553.

eyevfTo TTO'A£/OW ev TU'

[Facsimile of last page.]

M. D. LIIL

[Facsimile of title page.]

This work was printed at Vienne in Dauphine, at the expense of the author,
who is indicated on the last page by the initial letters M. S. V. ; i.e. Michael
Sewetus Villanovanns. It contains in 734 octavo pages : 1) Seven books on
the Trinity (the ed. of 1531 revised) ; 2) Three books on Faith and the
Kighteousness of the kingdom of Christ (revised) ; 3) Four books on Regen
eration and the kingdom of Antichrist; 4) Thirty Epistles to Calvin; 5) Sixty
Signs of the reign of Antichrist ; 6) Apology to Melanchthon and his col
leagues on the mystery of the Trinity and ancient discipline.

One thousand (some say eight hundred) copies were printed and nearly
all burnt or otherwise destroyed. Four or five were saved: namely, one sent
by Servetus through Frelon to Calvin ; one taken from the five bales seized
at Lyons for the use of the Inquisitor Ory ; a third transmitted for inspection
to the Swiss Churches and Councils ; a fourth sent by Calvin to Bullinger ;
a fifth given by Calvin to Colladon, one of the judges of Servetus, in which
the objectionable passages are marked, and which was, perhaps, the same
with the fourth copy. Castellio (1554) complained that he could not get a
copy.

§ 136. THE SERVETUS LITERATURE. 683

At present only two copies of the original edition are known to exist ; one
in the National Library of Paris (the Colladon copy), the other in the Imperial
Library of Vienna. Willis gives the curious history of these copies, pp. 535-
541 ; comp. his note on p. 196. Audin says that he used the annotated copy
which bears the name of Colladon on the title-page, and the marks of the
flames on the margins ; how it was rescued, he does not know. It is this
copy which passed into the hands of Dr. Richard Mead, a distinguished
physician in London, who put a Latin note at the head of the work : " Fuit
hie liber D. Colladon qui ipse nomen suum adscripsit. Ille vero simul cum Calvino
inter judices sedebat qui uuctorem Servetum flammis damnarunt. Ipse indicem in
Jine con fecit. Et porro in ipso opere lineis duetts hie et illic notavit verba quibus
ejus blasphemias et errores coargueret. Hoc exemplar unicum quantum scire licet
flammis servatum restat : omnia enim quce reperire poterat auctoritate sua itt
comburerentur curavit Calvinus." (Quoted from Audin.) This must be the
copy now in Paris. Dr. Mead began to republish a handsome edition in 1723,
but it was suppressed and burnt by order of Gibson, the bishop of London.

In 1790, the book rose like a phoenix from its ashes in the shape of an
exact reprint, page for page, and line for line, so that it can only be distin
guished from the first edition by the date of publication at the bottom of the
last page in extremely small figures — 1790 (not 1791, as Trechsel, StJihelin,
Willis, and others, say). The reprint was made from the original copy in
the Vienna Library by direction of Chr. Th. Murr, M.D. (See his Adno-
tationes ad BiUiothecas Hallerianas, cum van' is ad scripta Michaelis Serveti per-
tinentibus, Erlangen, 1805, quoted by Willis.) The edition must have been
small, for copies are rare. My friend, the Rev. Samuel M. Jackson, is in
possession of a copy which I have used, and of which two pages, the first
and the last, are given in facsimile.

A German translation of the Restitutio by Dr. BERNHARD Srnsss: Michael
Servets Wiederherstellung des Christenthums zum ersten Mai iibersetzt. Erster Bd.,
Wiesbaden (Limbarth), 1892 (323 pp.). The second vol. lias not yet appeared.
He says in the preface: " A.n Segeisterung fur Christus und an biblischem Puris-
mus ist Servet den meisten Theologen unserer Tage weit iiberlegen [?] ; von eigent-
Uclien Ldsterungen ist nichts bei ihm zu entdecken." Dr. Spiess, like Dr. Tollin,
is both a defender of Servetus and an admirer of Calvin. He translated the
first ed. of his Institutes (1530) into German (Wiesbaden, 1887).

The geographical and medical works of Servetus will be noticed in the
next sections.

II. CALVINISTIC SOURCES.

CALVIN : Defensio orthodox^ fldei de sacra trinitate contra prodigiosos errores
Michaelis Serveti flispani, ubi ostenditur hcvreticos jure gladii coercendos
esse, etc., written in 1554, in Opera, VIII. (Brunsw., 1870), 453-044. The
same volume contains thirty letters of Servetus to Calvin, 045-720, and
the Actes du proces de Mich. Servet., 721-872. See also the correspond
ence of Calvin from the year 1553 in vol. XIV. 58 sqq. (The Defensio
is in the Amsterdam ed., vol. IX. 510-507.) Calvin refers to Servetus
after his death several times in the last ed. of the Institutes (I. III. § 10,
22; II. IX. § 3, 10; IV. XVI. 29, 31), in his Responsio ad Balduini Con-

684 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

vitla (1562), Opera, IX. 575, and in his Commentary on John 1 : 1 (written
in 1554) : " Servetus, superbissimus ex gente Hispanica nebulo."
BEZA gives a brief account in his Calvini Vita, ad a. 1553 and 1554, where he
says that " Servetus was justly punished at Geneva, not as a sectary,
but as a monster made up of nothing but impiety and horrid blasphemies,
with which, by his speeches and writings, for the space of thirty years,
he had infected both heaven and earth." He thinks that Servetus uttered
a satanic prediction on the title-page of his book : " Great war took place
in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting with [not against] the dragon."
He also wrote an elaborate defence of the death-penalty for heresy in
his tract De hmreticis a cicili maqi strata puniendis, ad versus Martini Bellii
[pseudonym] f array inem ct novornm academicorum sectam. Geneva (Oliva
Rob. Stephani), 1554; second cd. 1592; French translation, 1560. See
Heppe's Seza, p. 38 sq.

III. ANTI-CALVINJSTIC.

BOLSEC, in his Histoire de la vie . . . de Jean Calvin (1577), chs. III. and
IV., discusses the trial of Servetus in a spirit hostile alike to Calvin
and Servetus. He represents the Roman Catholic view. He calls Serve
tus "a very arrogant and insolent man," and a "monstrous heretic,"
who deserved to be exterminated. " Desireroy" he says, p. 25, "que tons
semblables fussent exterminez : et I'e'glise de nostre Seigneur fut bien purge'e de
telle vermine." His more tolerant editor, L. F. Chastel, protests against
this wish by an appeal to Luke 9 : 55.

IV. DOCUMENTARY SOURCES.

The Acts of the process of Servetus at Vienne were published by the Abbe
D'ARTIGNY, Paris, 1749 (Tom. II. des Nouveaux Me'moires). — The Acts
of the process at Geneva, first published by J. H. ALBERT RILLIET : Rela
tion du proces criminel intente' a Geneve en 1553 contre Michel Servett re'dige'e
d'apres les documents originaux. Geneve, 1844. Reprinted in Opera, vol.
VIII. — English translation, with notes and additions, by W. K. TWEEDIE :
Calvin and Serretus. Edinburgh, 1846. German translation by BRUNNE-
MANN (see below).

V. MODERN WORKS.

* L. MOSHEIM, the famous Lutheran Church historian (1694-1755), made the
first impartial investigation of the Servetus controversy, and marks a
reaction of judgment in favor of Servetus, in two monographs, Geschichte
des beriihmten Spanischen Arztes Michael Serveto, Helmstaedt, 1748, 4°
(second vol. of his Ketzergeschichte} ; and Neue Nachrichten von Serveto,
1750. He had first intrusted his materials to a pupil, HENR. AB. ALL-
WOERDKN, who published a Historia Michaelis Served, Helmstadii, 1727
(238 pp., with a fine portrait of Servetus and the scene of his execution) ;
but as this book was severely criticised by Armand de la Chapelle, the
pastor of the French congregation at the Hague, Mosheim wrote his first
work chiefly from copies of the acts of the trial of Servetus at Geneva
(which are verified by the publication of the original documents in
1844), and his second work from the trial at Vienne, which were fur-

§ 136. THE SERVETUS LITERATURE. 685

nished to him by a French ecclesiastic. Comp. HENRY, III. 102 sq. ;

DYER, 540 sq.

In the nineteenth century Servetus has been thoroughly discussed by the
biographers of Calvin: HENRY (vol. III. 107 sqq., abridged in Stebbing's
transl., vol. II.) ; AUDIN (chs. XL. and XLI.) ; DYER (chs. IX. and X., pp.
296-367) ; STAHELIN (I. 422 sqq. ; II. 309 sqq.) ; and by AMEDEE ROGET,
in his Histoire du peuple de Geneve (vol. IV., 1877, which gives the history
of 1553-1555). Henry, Stahelin, and Roget vindicate Calvin, but dissent from
his intolerance; Dyer aims to be impartial; Audin, like Bolsec, condemns
both Calvin and Servetus.

* F. TRECHSEL : Michael Servet und seine Vorgdnger, Heidelberg, 1839 (the

first part of his Die protest. Antitrinitarier} . He draws chiefly from
Servetus's works and from the proceedings of the trial in the archives of
Bern, which agree with those of Geneva, published afterwards by Rilliet.
His work is learned and impartial, but with great respect for Calvin.
Comp. his valuable article in the first ed. of Herzog, vol. XIV. 286-301.

* \\. K. TWEEDIE : Calvin and Servetus, London, 1846.

EMILE SAISSET : Michael Servet, I. Doctrine philosophic/lie et religieuse de
M. S. ; II. Le proces et la mort de M. 8. In the " Revue des deux
Mondes" for 1848, and in his "Melanges d'histoire," 1859, pp. 117-227.
Saisset was the first to assign Servetus his proper place among scientists
and pantheists. He calls him " le the'ologien philosophe panthe'iste pre'curseur
inattendu de Malebranche et de Spinoza, de Schleiermacher et de Strauss."

J. S. PORTER (Unitarian) : Servetus and Calvin, 1854.

KARL BRUNNEMANN: M. Serv., eine aktenmdssige Darstellung des 1553 in Genf
gegen ihn gefuhrten Kriminal-processes, Berlin, 1865. (From Rilliet.)

* HENRI TOLLIN (Lie. Theol., Dr. Med., and minister of the French Reformed

Church at Magdeburg) : I, Charakterbild Michael Servets. Berlin, 1876,

48 pp. 8° (transl. into French by Mme. Pieheral-Dardier, Paris, 1879) ;

II. Das Lehrsystem Michael Servets, genetisch dargestellt, Giitersloh, 1876-

1878, 3 vols. (besides many smaller tracts; see below).
*R. WILLIS (M.D.) : Servetus and Calvin. London, 1877 (541 pp.), with a

fine portrait of Servetua and an ugly one of Calvin. More favorable

to the former.
MARCELINO MENENDEZ PELAYO (R. Cath.) : Historia de las Heterodoxos

Espanjoles. Madrid, 1877. Tom. II. 249-313.
DON PEDRO GONZALES DE VELASCO: Miguel Serveto. Madrid, 1880 (23 pp.).

He has placed a statue of Serveto in the portico of the Institute antro-

pologico at Madrid.

* Prof. Dr. A. v. D. LINDE : Michael Servet, een Brandoffer der Gereformeerdc

Inquisitie. Groningen, 1891 (326 pp.). Hostile to Calvin, as the title
indicates, and severe also against Tollin, but valuable for the literary
references, distributed among the chapters.

(Articles in Encyclop., by CHARLES DARDIER, in Lichtenberger's " Encycl.
des Sciences religieuses," vol. XI., pp. 570-582 (Paris, 1881); in
LAROUSSE'S " Grand Dictionnaire universel," vol. XIV. 621-623 ; ALEX.

686 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

GORDON, in " Eneycl. Brit." XXI. 084-686; by BERNH. RIGGENKACH, in
Herzog2, XIV. 153-161.)

The theology of Servetus is analyzed and criticised by HEBERLE : ^f. Servets
Trinitdtslehre und Christologie in the " Tiibinger Zeitschrift" for 1840;
BAUR: Die christl. Lehre v. d. Dreieinigkeit und Menschiverdung Gottes
(Tubingen, 1843), III. 54-103; DORNER: Lehre v. d. Person Christi (Ber
lin, 1853), II. 613, 629, 649-660; PUNJER : De If. Serveti doctrina, Jena,
1876.

The tragedy of Servetus has been dramatized by Max Ring (Die Genfer,
1850), Jose Echegaray (1880), and Albert Hamann (1881).

Servetus has been more thoroughly discussed and defended in recent
times than any man connected with the Reformation.

The greatest Servetus scholar and vindicator is Dr. Tollin, pastor of
a Huguenot Church in Germany, who calls himself "a Calvinist by birth
and a decided friend of toleration by nature/' He was led to the study of
Servetus by his interest in Calvin, and has written a Serveto-centric library
of about forty books and tracts, bearing upon every aspect of Servetus : his
Theologi/, Anthropology, Soteriology, Eschatology, Diabology, Antichristology, his
relations to the Reformers (Luther, Bucer, Melanchthon), and to Thomas
Aquinas, and also his medical and geographical writings. He has kindly
furnished me with a complete list, and I will mention the most important
below in their proper places.

Dr. Tollin assumes that Servetus was radically misunderstood by all his
opponents — Catholic, Calvinistic, and Lutheran, and even by his Socinian
and other Unitarian sympathizers. He thinks that even Calvin misunder
stood him, though he understood him better than his other contemporaries.
He makes Servetus a real hero, the peer of Calvin in genius, the discoverer
of the circulation of the blood, the founder of comparative geography (the
forerunner of Ritter), and the pioneer of modern Christology, which, instead
of beginning with the pre-existent Logos, rises from the contemplation of the
man Jesus to the recognition of Jesus Christ as the Messiah, then as the
Son of God, and last as God. But he has overdone the subject, and put
some of his own ideas into the brain of Servetus, who, like Calvin, must
be studied and judged in the light of the sixteenth, and not of the nineteenth,
century.

Next to Tollin, Professor Harnack, Neander's successor in Berlin, has
formed a most favorable idea of Servetus. Without entering into an analy
sis of his views, he thinks that in him "the best of all that came to maturity
in the sixteenth century was united, if we except the evangelical Reforma
tion," and thus characterizes him : " Servede ist gieich bedeutend als empirischer
For seller, als kriti*cher Df nicer, als speculative)* Phihsoph und als christ/icher
Reformer im besfen Sinn dcs }Vorts. Es ist eine Paradoxie der Geschichte, dass
iSpanien — das Land, u-elches von den Ideen der ncttf.n Zeit im 16 Jahrhundert am
wenigsten beriihrt gen-earn ist — diesen einzigen Mann hervorgebracht hat." (Dog-
mengeschichte, Bd. III. 661.)

§ 137. CALVIN AND SERVETUS. 687

§ 137. Calvin and Servetus.

We now come to the dark chapter in the history of Calvin
which has cast a gloom over his fair name, and exposed him,
not unjustly, to the charge of intolerance and persecution,
which he shares with his whole age.

The burning of Servetus and the decretum horribile are
sufficient in the judgment of a large part of the Christian
world to condemn him and his theology, but cannot destroy
the rocky foundation of his rare virtues and lasting merits.
History knows only of one spotless being — the Saviour of
sinners. Human greatness and purity are spotted by marks
of infirmity, which forbid idolatry. Large bodies cast large
shadows, and great virtues are often coupled with great
vices.

Calvin and Servetus — what a contrast ! The best abused
men of the sixteenth century, and yet direct antipodes of
each other in spirit, doctrine, and aim : the reformer and the
deformer ; the champion of orthodoxy and the archheretic ;
the master architect of construction and the master architect
of ruin, brought together in deadly conflict for rule or ruin.
Both were men of brilliant genius and learning ; both deadly
foes of the Roman Antichrist ; both enthusiasts for a restora
tion of primitive Christianity, but with opposite views of
what Christianity is.

They were of the same age, equally precocious, equally
bold and independent, and relied on purely intellectual
and spiritual forces. The one, while a youth of twenty-
seven, wrote one of the best systems of theology and vindica
tions of the Christian faith ; the other, when scarcely above
the age of twenty, ventured on the attempt to uproot the
fundamental doctrine of orthodox Christendom. Both died
in the prime of manhood, the one a natural, the other a
violent, death.

Calvin's works are in every theological library ; the books

688 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

of Servetus are among the greatest rareties. Calvin left
behind him flourishing churches, and his influence is felt
to this day in the whole Protestant world ; Servetus passed
away like a meteor, without a sect, without a pupil ; yet he
still eloquently denounces from his funeral pile the crime
and folly of religious persecution, and has recently been
idealized by a Protestant divine as a prophetic forerunner of
modern christo-centric theology.

Calvin felt himself called by Divine Providence to purify
the Church of all corruptions, and to bring her back to the
Christianity of Christ, and regarded Servetus as a servant of
Antichrist, who aimed at the destruction of Christianity.
Servetus was equally confident of a divine call, and even
identified himself with the archangel Michael in his apoca
lyptic fight against the dragon of Rome and "the Simon
Magus of Geneva."

A mysterious force of attraction and repulsion brought
these intellectual giants together in the drama of the Refor
mation. Servetus, as if inspired by a demoniac force, urged
himself upon the attention of Calvin, regarding him as the
pope of orthodox Protestantism, whom he was determined
to convert or to dethrone. He challenged Calvin in Paris
to a disputation on the Trinity when the latter had scarcely
left the Roman Church, but failed to appear at the ap
pointed place and hour.1 He bombarded him with letters
from Vienne ; and at last he heedlessly rushed into his power

1 See above, p. 324. Eeza thus reports this incident : " Not long after
Calvin returned [from Angoulerne, in 1534] to Paris, as if called there by
the hand of God himself j for the impious Servetus was even then disseminat
ing his heretical poison against the sacred Trinity in that city. He professed
to desire nothing more earnestly than to have an opportunity for entering
into discussion with Calvin, who waited long for Servetus, the time and place
for an interview having been appointed, with great danger to his own life,
since he was at that time under the necessity of being concealed on account
of the incensed rage of his adversaries. Calvin was disappointed in his
expectations of meeting Servetus, who wanted courage to endure even the
sight of his opponent."

§ 137. CALVIN AND SERVETUS. 689

at Geneva, and into the flames which have immortalized his
name.1

The judgment of historians on these remarkable men has
undergone a great change. Calvin's course in the tragedy
of Servetus was fully approved by the best men in the six
teenth and seventeenth centuries.2 It is as fully condemned
in the nineteenth century. Bishop Bossuet was able to
affirm that all Christians were happily agreed in maintaining
the rightfulness of the death penalty for obstinate heretics,
as murderers of souls. A hundred years later the great his
torian Gibbon echoed the opposite public sentiment when
he said : " I am more deeply scandalized at the single execu
tion of Servetus than at the hecatombs which have blazed at
auto-da-fe's of Spain and Portugal." 3

It would be preposterous to compare Calvin with Torque-
mada.4 But it must be admitted that the burning of Servetus
is a typical case of Protestant persecution, and makes Calvin
responsible for a principle which may be made to justify
an indefinite number of applications. Persecution deserves
much severer condemnation in a Protestant than in a Roman

1 " If ever a poor fanatic thrust himself into the fire, it was Michael
Servetus." Coleridge, in his Table-Talk.

2 See the judgments below in § 139.

3 In a footnote in ch. LIV. of his work on the Decline and Fall of the R. E.
(Smith's ed. V. 552). He assigns three reasons for this judgment: (1) the
zeal of Calvin was envenomed by personal malice and perhaps envy [?] ;
(2) the deed of cruelty was not varnished by the pretence of danger to the
Church or State ; (3) Calvin violated the golden rule of doing as he would
be done by. Gibbon's prejudice against Calvinism is expressed in the sen
tence (p. 551) that "many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer
is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant."

4 James Martineau states that "in his eighteen years of office, Cardinal
Thomas de Torquemada had burned alive, it is computed, eighty-eight hun
dred victims, and punished ninety thousand in various ways, not for offences
against the moral law, or crimes against society, but for thoughts of their
own about religion, which only God, and not the pope, had allowed ; or for
being Jews that would not be apostates ; or for refusing on the rack to con
fess what they had never done." The Seat of Authority in Religion, 1890,
p. 156 ; comp. Llorente's Histoire Critique de I' Inquisition, IV. 251 sq.

690 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Catholic, because it is inconsistent. Protestantism must
stand or fall with freedom of conscience and freedom of
worship.

From the standpoint of modern Christianity and civiliza
tion, the burning of Servetus admits of no justification.
Even the most admiring biographers of Calvin lament and
disapprove his conduct in this tragedy, which has spotted
his fame and given to Servetus the glory of martyrdom.

But if we consider Calvin's course in the light of the
sixteenth century, we must come to the conclusion that he
acted his part from a strict sense of duty and in harmony
with the public law and dominant sentiment of his age, which
justified the death penalty for heresy and blasphemy, and
abhorred toleration as involving indifference to truth Even
Servetus admitted the principle under which he suffered ; for
he said, that incorrigible obstinacy and malice deserved death
before God and men.1

Calvin's prominence for intolerance was his misfortune.
It was an error of judgment, but not of the heart, and must
be excused, though it cannot be justified, by the spirit of
his age.2

Calvin never changed his views or regretted his conduct
towards Servetus. Nine years after his execution he justi
fied it in self-defence against the reproaches of Baudouin
(1562), saying: "Servetus suffered the penalty due to his
heresies, but was it by my will ? Certainly his arrogance
destroyed him not less than his impiety. And what crime
was it of mine if our Council, at my exhortation, indeed, but
in conformity with the opinion of several Churches, took

1 " Hoc crimen est morte simpliciter dignum, et apud Deum et apud homines."
In the twenty-seventh letter to Calvin (Christian! smi Restitutio, p. 656). He
speaks there of the punishment of Ananias and Sapphira, who were " incorri-
gibiles, in malitia obstinati." Calvin refers to this admission of Servetus, and
charges him with inconsistency. Opera, VIII. 462.

2 This is admitted now by all impartial historians. Michelet (XI. 96)
calls this blot in Calvin's life " crime du temps plus que de Vhomme meme."

§ 137. CALVIN AND SERVETUS. 691

vengeance on his execrable blasphemies? Let Baudouin
abuse me as long as he will, provided that, by the judgment
of Melanchthon, posterity owes me a debt of gratitude for
having purged the Church of so pernicious a monster." l

In one respect he was in advance of his times, by recom
mending to the Council of Geneva, though in vain, a miti
gation of punishment and the substitution of the sword for
the stake.

Let us give him credit for this comparative moderation in
a semi-barbarous age when not only hosts of heretics, but
even innocent women, as witchps, were cruelly tortured and
roasted to death. Let us remember also that it was not
simply a case of fundamental heresy, but of horrid blas
phemy, with which he had to deal. If he was mistaken, if
he misunderstood the real opinions of Servetus, that was an
error of judgment, and an error which all the Catholics and
Protestants of that age shared. Nor should it be overlooked
that Servetus was convicted of falsehood, that he over
whelmed Calvin with abuse,2 and that he made common
cause with the Libertines, the bitter enemies of Calvin, who
had a controlling influence in the Council of Geneva at that
time, and hoped to overthrow him.

It is objected that there was no law in Geneva to justify the
punishment of Servetus, since the canon law had been abol
ished by the Reformation in 1535 ; but the Mosaic law was
not abolished, it was even more strictly enforced ; and it is

1 Responsio ad Balduini Convicia, Opera, IX. 575: " lustas quidem ille pcenas
dfdit : sed an meo arbitrio ? Certe arrogantia non minus quam impietas perdidit
fiominem. Sed quodnam meum crimen, si Senatus noster meo hortatu, ex plurium
tamen ecclesiarum sententia, exsecrabiles blasphemias ultus est? Vituperet me sane
hac in parte Franciscus Balduinus, modo Philippi Melanchthonis iudicio posteritas
mihi gratitudinem debeat, quia tarn exitiali monstro ecdesiam purgaverim. Senatum
etiam nostrum, sub cuiits ditione aliquando vixit, perstrinqat ingratus hospes : modo
idem Philippus scripto publice edito testetnr dignum esse exemplum quod imitentur
ornnes christiani principes."

- He called him at the trial Simon Magus, impostor, sycophanta, nebulo, per-
fidus, impudens, ridiculus mus, cacodcemon, homicida, etc.

692 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

from the Mosaic law against blasphemy that Calvin drew
his chief argument.

On the other hand, however, we must frankly admit that
there were some aggravating circumstances which make it
difficult to reconcile Calvin's conduct with the principles of
justice and humanity. Seven years before the death of Ser-
;vetus he had expressed his determination not to spare his life
if he should come to Geneva. He wrote to Farel (Feb. 13,
1546) : " Servetus lately wrote to me, and coupled with his
letter a long volume of his delirious fancies, with the Thra-
sonic boast, that I should see something astonishing and
unheard of. He offers to come hither, if it be agreeable to
me. But I am unwilling to pledge my word for his safety ;.
for if he does come, and my authority be of any avail,
I shall never suffer him to depart alive."1 It was not incon
sistent with this design, if he aided, as it would seem, in
bringing the book of Servetus to the notice of the Roman
inquisition in Lyons. He procured his arrest on his arrival
in Geneva. He showed personal bitterness towards him
during the trial. Servetus was a stranger in Geneva, and
had committed no offence in that city. Calvin should
have permitted him quietly to depart, or simply caused his
expulsion from the territory of Geneva, as in the case of
Bolsec. This would have been sufficient punishment. If
he had recommended expulsion instead of decapitation, he
would have saved himself the reproaches of posterity, which
will never forget and never forgive the burning of Servetus.

In the interest of impartial history we must condemn the
intolerance of the victor as well as the error of the victim,

1 " Servetus nuper ad me scripsit ac Utter is adjunxit longum volumen suorum
deliriorum, cum Thrasonica factantia, me stupenda et hactemus inaudita risiirum.
Si mihi placeat, line se venturum recipit. Sed nolo fidem meam interponere. XAM

SI VENERIT, MODO VALE AT MEA AUCTORITAS, VIVUM EXIRE NUXQTJAM PATIAR."

Opera, VIII. 283; Henry, III. Beil. 65-67 ; Bonnet-Constable, II. 17. Grotius
discovered this damaging letter in Paris, which was controverted, but is now
generally admitted as genuine. There is an exact copy of it in Geneva.

§ 138. CATHOLIC INTOLERANCE. 693

and admire in both the loyalty to conscientious conviction.
Heresy is an error; intolerance, a sin; persecution, a
crime.

§ 138. Catholic Intolerance.

Comp. vol. VI. §§ 11 and 12 (pp. 50-86), and SCHAFF: The Progress of
Religious Liberty fas shoivn in the History of Toleration Acts. New York,
1889.

This is the place to present the chief facts on the subject
of religious toleration and intolerance, which gives to the
case of Servetus its chief interest and importance in history.
His theological opinions are of far less consequence than his
connection with the theory of persecution which caused
his death.

Persecution and war constitute the devil's chapter in
history; but it is overruled by Providence for the develop
ment of heroism, and for the progress of civil and religious
freedom. Without persecutors, there could be no martyrs.
Every church, yea, every truth and every good cause, has
its martyrs, who stood the fiery trial and sacrificed comfort
and life itself to their sacred convictions. The blood of
martyrs is the seed of toleration; toleration is the seed
of liberty; and liberty is the most precious gift of God to
every man who has been made in his image and redeemed
by Christ.

Of all forms of persecution, religious persecution is the
worst because it is enacted in the name of God. It violates
the sacred rights of conscience, and it rouses the strongest
and deepest passions. Persecution by word and pen, which
springs from the hatred, envy, and malice of the human heart,
or from narrowness and mistaken zeal for truth, will con
tinue to the end of time ; but persecution by fire and sword
contradicts the spirit of humanity and Christianity, and is
inconsistent with modern civilization. Civil offences against
the State deserve civil punishment, by fine, imprisonment,

694 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

confiscation, exile, and death, according to the degree of
guilt. Spiritual offences against the Church should be
spiritually judged, and punished by admonition, deposition,
and excommunication, with a view to the reformation and
restoration of the offender. This is the law of Christ. The
temporal punishment of heresy is the legitimate result of
a union of Church and State, and diminishes in rigor as this
union is relaxed. A religion established by law must be
protected by law. Hence the Constitution of the United
States in securing full liberty of religion, forbids Congress
to establish by law any religion or church.1 The two were
regarded as inseparable. An established church must in
self-defence persecute dissenters, or abridge their liberties ;
a free church cannot persecute. And yet there may be as
much individual Christian kindness and charity in an estab
lished church, and as much intolerance and bigotry in a free
church. The ante-Nicene Fathers had the same zeal for
orthodoxy and the same abhorrence of heresy as the Nicene
and post-Nicene Fathers, the mediaeval popes and school
men, and the Reformers ; but they were confined to the
spiritual punishment of heresy. In the United States of
America persecution is made impossible, not because the
zeal for truth or the passions of hatred and intolerance have
ceased, but because the union between Church and State
has ceased.

The theory of religious persecution was borrowed from
the Mosaic law, which punished idolatry and blasphemy
by death. " He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto
Jehovah only, shall be utterly destroyed." 2 " He that blas-
phemeth the name of Jehovah, he shall surely be put to
death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as

1 In the First Amendment of the Constitution : " Congress shall make no
law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof."

2 Ex. 22 : 20 ; comp. Deut. 13 : 5-15 ; 17 : 2-5, etc.

§ 138. CATHOLIC INTOLERANCE. 69o

well the stranger, as the home-born, when he blaspheme th
the name of Jehovah, shall be put to death." l

The Mosaic theocracy was superseded in its national and
temporal provisions by the kingdom of Christ, which is " not
of this world." The confounding of the Old and New
Testaments, of the law of Moses and the gospel of Christ,
was the source of a great many evils in the Church.

The New Testament furnishes not a shadow of support
for the doctrine of persecution. The whole teaching and
example of Christ and the Apostles are directly opposed to
it. They suffered persecution, but they persecuted no one.
Their weapons were spiritual, not carnal. They rendered
to God the things that are God's, and to Caesar the things
that are Caesar's. The only passage which St. Augustin
could quote in favor of coercion, was the parabolic "Con
strain them to come in " (Luke 14 : 23), which in its literal
acceptation would teach just the reverse, namely, a forced
salvation. St. Thomas Aquinas does not quote any passage
from the New Testament in favor of intolerance, but tries
to explain away those passages which commend toleration
(Matt. 13:29, 30; 1 Cor. 11:19; 2 Tim. 2:24). The
Church has never entirely forgotten this teaching of Christ
and always, even in the darkest ages of persecution, avowed
the principle, " Ecclesia non sitit sanguinem" ; but she made
the State her executor.

In the first three centuries the Church had neither the
power nor the wish to persecute. Justin Martyr, Tertullian,
and Lactantius were the earliest advocates of the liberty of
conscience. The Toleration Edict of Constantine (313)
anticipated the modern theory of the right of every man to
choose his religion and to worship according to his convic
tion. But this was only a step towards the union of the
empire with the Church, when the Church assumed the
position and power of the heathen state religion.

1 Lev. 24 : 16 ; comp. 1 Kings 21 : 10, 13.

696 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

The era of persecution within the Church began with the
first (Ecumenical Council, which was called and enforced by
Constantine. This Council presents the first instance of a
subscription to a creed, and the first instance of banishment
for refusing to subscribe. Arius and two Egyptian bishops,
who agreed with him, were banished to Illyria. During the
violent Arian controversies, which shook the empire between
the first and second (Ecumenical Councils (325-381), both
parties when in power freely exercised persecution by
imprisonment, deposition, and exile. The Arians were as
intolerant as the orthodox. The practice furnished the basis
for a theory and public law.

The penal legislation against heresy was inaugurated by
Theodosius the Great after the final triumph of the Nicene
Creed in the second (Ecumenical Council. He promulgated
during his reign (379-395) no less than fifteen severe edicts
against heretics, especially those who dissented from the
doctrine of the Trinity. They were deprived of the right
of public worship, excluded from public offices, and exposed,
in some cases, to capital punishment.1 His rival and col
league, Maximus, put the theory into full practice, and shed
the first blood of heretics by causing Priscillian, a Spanish
bishop of Manichsean tendency, with six adherents, to be
tortured, condemned, and executed by the sword.

The better feeling of the Church raised in Ambrose
of Milan and Martin of Tours a protest against this act of
inhumanity. But public sentiment soon approved of it.
Jerome seems to favor the death penalty for heresy on the
ground of Deut. 13 : 6-10. The great Augustin, who had

1 See the Theodosian and Justinian Codes under the titles: De summa
Trinitate, De Catholica Fide, De Hfcretids, De Apostatis. For a summary
compare Gibbon, ch. XXVII. (vol. III. 107 sqq.), and Milman, Latin Chris
tianity, bk. III. ch. V. (I. 512 sqq.). Gibbon says: "Theodosius considered
every heretic as a rebel against the supreme powers of heaven and of earth ;
and each of these powers might exercise their peculiar jurisdiction over the
soul and body of the guilty."

§ 138. CATHOLIC INTOLERANCE. 69T

himself been a Manichgean heretic for nine years, justified
forcible measures against the Donatists, in contradiction to
his noble sentiment: "Nothing conquers but truth, the
victory of truth is love." 1 The same Christian Father who-
ruled the thinking of the Church for many centuries, and
moulded the theology of the Reformers, excluded all unbap-
tized infants from salvation, though Christ emphatically
included them in the kingdom of heaven. Leo I., the
greatest of the early popes, advocated the death penalty
for heresy and approved of the execution of the Priscillian-
ists. Thomas Aquinas, the master theologian of the Middle
Ages, lent the weight of his authority to the doctrine of
persecution, and demonstrated from the Old Testament and
from reason that heretics are worse criminals than debasers
of money, and ought to be put to death by the civil magis
trate.2 Heresy was regarded as the greatest sin, and worse
than murder, because it destroyed the soul. It took the
place of idolatry in the Mosaic law.

The Theodosian Code was completed in the Justinian-
Code (527-534) ; the Justinian Code passed into the Holy
Roman Empire, and became the basis of the legislation of
Christian Europe. Rome ruled the world longer by law
and by the cross than she had ruled it by the sword. The
canon law likewise condemns to the flames persons convicted
of heresy.3 This law was generally accepted on the Conti
nent in the thirteenth century.4 England in her isolation
was more independent, and built society on the foundation

1 Comp. vol. III. 144 sq.

2 Summa Theol. Secunda Secundce, Quest. XI. (de hceresi), Art. 3. In
Migne's ed. Tom. III. 107.

3 See Boehmer, Inst. Juris Canonici, 1747, lib. V. tit. 7, § 10.

4 Friedberg, Lehrbuch des katholischen und evangelischen Kirchenrechts, 2d
ed. 1884, p. 221: " Im XIII. Jahrhundert erfolcjt iiberall die rechtliche staat-
liche Festste/lung der Todesstrafe und Vermogensconfiscation fur Ketzerei, und
die Kirche hat diese staatlichen Strafen nicht nur gebilligt, sondern auch verlangt,
und die weltliche Obrigkeit, die sie nicht vcrhdnge, selbst mit der Strafe der Ketzerei
bedroht."

698 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

of the common law; but Henry IV. and his Parliament
devised the sanguinary statute de Ticeretico comburendo, by
which William Sawtre, a parish priest, was publicly burnt at
Smithfield (Feb. 26, 1401) for denying the doctrine of tran-
substantiation, and the bones of Wiclif were burnt by Bishop
Fleming of Lincoln (in 1428). The statute continued in
force till 1677, when it was formally abolished.

On this legal and theological foundation the mediaeval
Church has soiled her annals with the blood of an army of
heretics which is much larger than the army of Christian
martyrs under heathen Rome. We need only refer to the
crusades against the Albigenses and Waldenses, which were
sanctioned by Innocent III., one of the best and greatest of
popes ; the tortures and autos-da-fe of the Spanish Inquisi
tion, which were celebrated with religious festivities ; the
fifty thousand or more Protestants who were executed during
the reign of the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands (1567-
1573) ; the several hundred martyrs who were burned in
Smithfield under the reign of the bloody Mary ; and the
repeated wholesale persecutions of the innocent Waldenses
in France and Piedmont, which cried to heaven for
vengeance.

It is vain to shift the responsibility upon the civil govern
ment. Pope Gregory XIII. commemorated the massacre
of St. Bartholomew not only by a Te Deum in the churches
of Rome, but more deliberately and permanently by a medal
which represents " The Slaughter of the Huguenots " by
an angel of wrath. The French bishops, under the lead of
the great Bossuet, lauded Louis XIV. as a new Constantine,
a new Theodosius, a new Charlemagne, a new exterminator
of heretics, for his revocation of the Edict of Nantes and
the infamous dragoonades against the Huguenots.

Among the more prominent individual cases of persecu
tion, we may mention the burning of Hus (1415) and
Jerome of Prague (1416) by order of the Council of Con-

§ 138. CATHOLIC INTOLERANCE. 699

stance, the burning of Savonarola in Florence (1498), the
burning of the three English Reformers at Oxford (1556),
of Aonio Paleario at Rome (1570), and of Giordano Bruno
(1600) in the same city and on the same spot where (1889)
the liberals of Italy have erected a statue to his memory.
Serve tus was condemned to death at the stake, and burnt
in effigy, by a Roman Catholic tribunal before he fell into the
hands of Calvin.

The Roman Church has lost the power, and to a large
extent also the disposition, to persecute by fire and sword.
Some of her highest dignitaries frankly disown the principle
of persecution, especially in America, where they enjoy the
full benefit of religious freedom.1 But the Roman curia
has never officially disowned the theory on which the
practice of persecution is based. On the contrary, several
popes since the Reformation have indorsed it. Pope Clement
VIII. denounced the Toleration Edict of Nantes as "the
most accursed that can be imagined, whereby liberty of
conscience is granted to everybody; which is the worst
thing in the world." Pope Innocent X. " condemned,
rejected, and annulled" the toleration articles of the West-
phalian Treaty of 1648, and his successors have ever pro
tested against it, though in vain. Pope Pius IX., in the
Syllabus of 1864, expressly condemned, among the errors
of this age, the doctrine of religious toleration and liberty.2

1 Among these is Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, who says (The Faith of
our Fathers, Balto., 1890, 36th ed., p. 284 sq.) : "I am not the apologist of the
Spanish Inquisition, and I have no desire to palliate or excuse the excesses
into which that tribunal may at times have fallen. From my heart I abhor
and denounce every species of violence, and injustice, and persecution, of
which the Spanish Inquisition may have been guilty. And in raising my
voice against coercion for conscience's sake, I am expressing not only my
own sentiments, but those of every Catholic priest and layman in the land.

" Our Catholic ancestors, for the last three hundred years, have suffered
so much for freedom of conscience, that they would rise up in judgment
against us, were we to become the advocates and defenders of religious
persecution. We would be a disgrace to our sires were we to trample on the
principle of liberty which they held dearer than life."

2 Syllabus Error urn, § III. 15 ; VI. 55 ; X. 78.

700 THE REFORMATION IX FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

And this pope has been declared to be officially infallible by
the Vatican decree of 1870, which embraces all his prede
cessors (notwithstanding the stubborn case of Honorius I.)
and all his successors in the chair of St. Peter. Leo XIII.
has moderately and cautiously indorsed the doctrine of the
Syllabus.1

§ 139. Protestant Intolerance. Judgments of the Reformers

on Servetus.

The Reformers inherited the doctrine of persecution from
their mother Church, and practised it as far as they had
the power. They fought intolerance with intolerance. They
differed favorably from their opponents in the degree and
extent, but not in the principle, of intolerance. They broke
down the tyranny of popery, and thus opened the way for
the development of religious freedom ; but they denied to
others the liberty which they exercised themselves. The
Protestant governments in Germany and Switzerland ex
cluded, within the limits of their jurisdiction, the Roman
Catholics from all religious and civil rights, and took
exclusive possession of their churches, convents, and other
property. They banished, imprisoned, drowned, beheaded,
hanged, and burned Anabaptists, Antitrinitarians, Schwenk-
felclians, and other dissenters. In Saxony, Sweden, Nor
way, and Denmark no religion and public worship was
allowed but the Lutheran. The Synod of Dort deposed and
expatriated all Arminian ministers and school-teachers. The
penal code of Queen Elizabeth and the successive acts of
Uniformity aimed at the complete extermination of all
dissent, whether papal or protestant, and made it a crime
for an Englishman to be anything else than an Episcopalian.
The Puritans when in power ejected two thousand ministers

1 See his Encyclicals of Nov. 1, 1885 (Immortale Dei}, and of June 20,
1888 (Libertas prcestantissimum natun* donuni). They are printed in the latest
ed. of Schaffs Creeds of Christendom, II. 555-602.

§ 139. PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE. 701

from their benefices for non-conformity; and the Episcopa
lians paid them back in the same coin when they returned
to power. " The Reformers," says Gibbon, with sarcastic
severity, " were ambitious of succeeding the tyrants whom
they had dethroned. They imposed with equal rigor their
creeds and confessions ; they asserted the right of the magis
trate to punish heretics with death. The nature of the tiger
was the same, but he was gradually deprived of his teeth
and fangs." 1

Protestant persecution violates the fundamental principle
of the Reformation. Protestantism has no right to exist
except on the basis of freedom of conscience.

HOAV, then, can we account for this glaring inconsistency ?
There is a reason for everything. Protestant persecution
was necessary in self-defence and in the struggle for exist
ence. The times were not ripe for toleration. The infant
Churches could not have stood it. These Churches had first
to be consolidated and fortified against surrounding foes.
Universal toleration at that time would have resulted in
universal confusion and upset the order of society. From
anarchy to absolute despotism is but one step. The division
of Protestantism into two rival camps, the Lutheran and the
Reformed, weakened it ; further divisions within these camps
would have ruined it and prepared an easy triumph for united
Romanism, which would have become more despotic than
ever before. This does not justify the principle, but it
explains the practice, of intolerance.

The Reformers and the Protestant princes and magis
trates were essentially agreed on this intolerant attitude,
both towards the Romanists and the heretical Protestants,
at least to the extent of imprisonment, deposition, and
expatriation. They differed only as to the degree of

1 Decline and Fall, ch. LIV. It should be remembered, however, that the
most intolerant form of intolerance is the intolerance of infidelity as mani
fested in the French Revolution during " the reign of terror."

702 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

severity. They all believed that the papacy is anti-Christian
and the mass idolatrous ; that heresy is a sin against God
and society ; that the denial of the Trinity and the divinity
of Christ is the greatest of heresies, which deserves death
according to the laws of the empire, and eternal punishment
according to the Athanasian Creed (with its three damnatory
clauses) ; and that the civil government is as much bound
to protect the first as the second table of the Decalogue,
and to vindicate the honor of God against blasphemy. They
were anxious to show their zeal for orthodoxy by severity
against heresy. They had no doubt that they themselves
were orthodox according to the only true standard of
orthodoxy — the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures.
And as regards the dogmas of the Trinity and Incarnation,
they were fully agreed with their Catholic opponents, and
equally opposed to the errors of Servetus, who denied those
dogmas with a boldness and contempt unknown before.

Let us ascertain the sentiments of the leading Reformers
with special reference to the case of Servetus. They form
a complete justification of Calvin as far as such a justifica
tion is possible.

LUTHER.

Luther, the hero of Worms, the champion of the sacred
rights of conscience, was, in words, the most violent, but
in practice, the least intolerant, among the Reformers. He
was nearest to Romanism in the condemnation of heresy, but
nearest to the genius of Protestantism in the advocacy of
religious freedom. He was deeply rooted in mediaeval piety,
and yet a mighty prophet of modern times. In his earlier
years, till 1529, he gave utterance to some of the noblest
sentiments in favor of religious liberty. " Belief is a free
thing," he said, " which cannot be enforced." " If heretics
Avere to be punished by death, the hangman would be the
most orthodox theologian." " Heresy is a spiritual thing

§ 139. PItOTESTANT INTOLERANCE. 703

which no iron can hew down, no fire burn, no water
drown." l " To burn heretics is contrary to the will of the
Holy Spirit." 2 " False teachers should not be put to death ;
it is enough to banish them." 3

But with advancing years he became less liberal and
more intolerant against Catholics, heretics, and Jews. He
exhorted the magistrates to forbid all preaching of Ana
baptists, whom he denounced without discrimination as false
prophets and messengers of the devil, and he urged their
expulsion.4 He raised no protest when the Diet of Speier,
in 1529, passed the cruel decree that the Anabaptists be
executed by fire and sword without distinction of sex, and

1 In his book Von iveltlicher Obrigkeit wie iveit man ihr Qehorsam schuldig
sei (1523), in Werke XXII. 90: " Ketzerei kann man nimmermehr mit Gewalt
icehren, es gehort ein ander Griff dazu, und ist hie ein ander /Streit und Handel,
denn mit dem Schwert. Gottes Wort soil hie streiten ; wenn das nicht ausreicJit,
so ivird's wohl unausgerichtet bleiben von weltlicher Gewalt, ob sie gleich die Welt
mit Slut Juliet. Ketzerei ist ein geistlich Ding, das kann man mit keinem Eisen
hauen, mit Iceinem Feuer verbrennen, mit keinem Wasser ertrdnken. Es ist aber
allein das Wort Gottes da, das thut's, wie Paulus sagt 2 Cor. 20 : 4, 5 : ' Unsere
Waffen sind nicht fleischlich, sondern mdchtig in Gott.'"

2 Conclus. LXXX. in the Resol. de Indulgentiis, 1518. This is one of the
theses which the Sorbonne of Paris condemned in 1521.

3 His last liberal utterance on the subject is in his letter to Link, 1528:
" Nullo modo possum admittere, falsos doctores occidi : satis est eos relegari."
Briefe, III. 347 sq. (De Wette's ed.). In the same year he wrote his book
Von der Wiedertaufe an zwei Pfarrherrn (Erl. ed. vol. XXVI) in which he
treats the doctrines of the Baptists without mercy, but at the same time
expresses sincere regret at the cruel treatment of them, saying : " Es ist nicht
redd und mir wahrlich leid, dass man solche elende Leute so jdmmerlich ermordet,
verbrennet und grdulich umbringt ; man sollte ja einen jeglichen lassen glauben,
was er ivollt ; glaubt er unrecht, so hat er genug Strafen an dem eu'igen Feuer in
der Hb'llen. Warum will man sie denn auch noch zeitlich martern, so feme sie
allein im Glauben irren und nicht auch daneben aufriihrerisch sind oder sonst der
Obrigkeit loiderstreben ! Lieber Gott, wie bald ist's geschehen, dass einer irre wird
und dem Teufei in Stricke fadt ? Mit der Schrifi und Gottes Wort sollt man
ihnen loehren und widerstehen, mit Feuer wird man wenig ausrichten." I have
quoted this and other passages in vol. VI. 59 sq., but could not well omit
them here on account of the connection.

4 Von den Schleichern und Winkelpredigern, addressed to Eberhard von der
Tannen on the Wartburg, 1531. Werke, XXXI. 214 sqq.

704 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

even without a previous hearing before the spiritual judges.1
The Elector of Saxony considered it his duty to execute
this decree, and put a number of Anabaptists to death in
his dominions. His neighbor, Philip of Hesse, who had
more liberal instincts than the contemporary princes of
Germany, could not find it in his conscience to use the
sword against differences of belief.2 But the theologians
of Wittenberg, on being consulted by the Elector John
Frederick about 1540 or 1541, gave their judgment in favor
of putting the Anabaptists to death, according to the laws
of the empire. Luther approved of this judgment under
his own name, adding that it was cruel to punish them by
the sword, but more cruel that they should damn the min
istry of the Word and suppress the true doctrine, and
attempt to destroy the kingdoms of the world.3

1 " Dass alle und jede Widertauffer und Widergetaufte, Mann und Weibs-
personen verstandigs Alters vom natiirlichen Leben zum Tode mit Feuer, Schwert
oder dergleichen nach Gelegenheit der Personen ohne vorgehende der geistlichen
Richter Inquisition gerichtet oder gebracht werden." This was the same Diet in
which the Lutheran Protestants entered their protest against the decision
of the majority (hence their name) ; but they assented to the cruel decree
against the Anabaptists, and also to the exclusion of the Zwinglians from tol
eration, with the exception of the Landgrave of Hesse, who protested also
against this intolerance.

2 In 1540 he boasted that no Anabaptist had been executed for opinion's
sake by him, whereas in other German lands the number of such martyrdoms
was, up to 1530, hard upon two thousand. " Wir kb'nnen in unserem Gewissen
nicht Jinden," he said to the elector, "jemanden des Glaubens halben, wo wir nicht
sonst genugsam Ursache der Verwirkung haben mogen, mit dem Schwert richten zu
lassen. Denn so es die Meinung haben sollte, miissten wir keinen Juden noch Papi-
sten, die Christum am hochsten blasphemiren, bei uns dulden und sie dergestalt
richten lassen." G. L. Schmidt, Justus Menius, der Reformator Thiiringens
(Gotha, 1867), vol. I. 144. Comp. Corpus Reform. IX. 757.

3 He wrote beneath the judgment of the Wittenberg theologians : "PLACET
MIHI MARTINO LUTHERO. Wiewol es crudele anzusehen, dass man sie mit dem
Schwert straft, so ists doch crudelius, dass sie ministerium verbi damniren und
keine gewisse Lehre treiben, und rechte Lehre unterdriicJcen, und dazu regna mundi
zerstoren wollen." The last sentence refers to the chiliastic views held by
many of the Anabaptists, for which they are condemned in the Augsburg
Confession. Seidemann, in the sixth vol. of De Wette's " Correspondence
of Luther," p. 291. He assigns this document to the year 1541. Comp.
Corp. Eef. IV. 737-740.

§ 139. PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE. 705

If we put a strict construction on this sentence, Luther
must be counted with the advocates of the death-penalty for
heresy. But he made a distinction between two classes of
Anabaptists — those who were seditious or revolutionary,
and those who were mere fanatics. The former should be
put to death, the latter should be banished.1 In a letter to
Philip of Hesse, dated November 20, 1538, he urgently
requested him to expel from his territory the Anabaptists,
whom he characterizes as children of the devil, but says
nothing of using the sword.2 We should give him, there
fore, the benefit of a liberal construction.3

At the same time, the distinction was not always strictly
observed, and fanatics were easily turned into criminals,
especially after the excesses of Minister, in 1535, which were
greatly exaggerated and made the pretext for punishing
innocent men and women.4 The whole history of the Ana-

1 " Anabaptistce occidendi. D. dixit ' Duplices sunt. Quidam aperte sediotiose
docent contra magistrates ; eos jure occidit elector. Reliqui habent fanaticas
opiniones, ii plerumque relegantur." G. Loesche, Analecta Lutherana et Melanch-
thoniana. Tischreden Luthers und Ausspriiche Melanchthons, Gotha, 1892, p. 137.

2 " Es ist nicht allein mein Bedenken, sondern auch demiithiges Bitten, E. F. G.
tvollten sie [die Wiedertdufer~] ernstlich des Landes venveisen, denn est ist gleich-
wol des Teufels Samen," etc. Luther's Briefe, Sendschreiben und Bedenken,
vol. VI. by Job. Karl Seidemann (Berlin, 1856), p. 216.

3 This is the conclusion of ray friend, Dr. Kostlin, of Halle, the distin
guished biographer of Luther. In reply to a letter, March 12, 1892, he com
municated to me his careful opinion as follows : " Nirgends, auch nicht in seiner
spdteren Zeit, that Luther Aeusserungen, in ivelchen er den Grundsatz des damaligen
allgemeinen Rechts (artch der Carolina), dass z. B. Bestreitung der Trinitdtslehr&
oder andere bloss dogmatische Irrlehre schon als solche mit dem Tod bestraft werden
sollte, sich angeeignet hdtte. So iveit wir sehen, hat er darin doch immer sehr von
Calvin und auch von Melanchthon, ja von alien anderen Hau]>tlehrern der Reforma
tion sich unterschieden. Insbesondere beschrdnkt er sich, z. B. einem Antitrini-
taner wie Joh. Campan geqenuber (' filium Satanw, adversarium Dei, quern plus
etiam quam Arius blasphemat'), doch auf den Wunsch, dass die Obrigkeit 'tales
furias non vocatas ' nicht zulassen mdge. Brieje v. De Wette IV. 321. Auch
die schdrfsten Ausserungen der Tischreaen (cf. auch die Colloquien ed. Bindseil)
yehen nie weiter, soiveit sie dogmatische Irrlehren betreffen."

4 See L. Keller : Geschichte der Wiedertdufer und ihres Reichs zu Munster,
Miinster, 1880, and his Die Reformation, p. 451, where he speaks of new
sources discovered since 1880.

706 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

baptist movement in the sixteenth century has to be rewritten
and disentangled from the odium tJieologicum.

As regards Servetus, Luther knew only his first work
against the Trinity, and pronounced it, in his Table Talk
(1532), an " awfully bad book." l Fortunately for his fame,
he did not live to pronounce a judgment in favor of his
execution, and we must give him the benefit of silence.

His opinions on the treatment of the Jews changed for the
worse. In 1523 he had vigorously protested against the
cruel persecution of the Jews, but in 1543 he counselled their
expulsion from Christian lands, and the burning of their
books, synagogues, and private houses in which they blas
pheme our Saviour and the Holy Virgin. He repeated this
advice in his last sermon, preached at Eisleben a few days
before his death.2

MELANCHTHON.

Melanchthon's record on this painful subject is unfortu
nately worse than Luther's. This is all the more significant
because he was the mildest and gentlest among the Reform
ers. But we should remember that his utterances on the
subject are of a later date, several years after Luther's death.
He thought that the Mosaic law against idolatry and blas
phemy was as binding upon Christian states as the Deca
logue, and was applicable to heresies as well.3 He therefore

1 " Ein grdulich bos Such." When Melanchthon informed him that the
opinions of Servetus found much applause in Italy, he remarked that " Italy
was full of pestilential opinions, and that if such errors as those of Servetus
should get there, horrible abominations would arise" (horribiles abominationes
ibi orituras). Bindseil, Martini Lutheri Colloquia, Tom. I. 876. Comp. Tollin,
M. Luther und M. Servet, Berlin, 1875, and M. Servet und Martin Butzer (or
Sercet und die oberlandischen He for mat or en, Berlin,* 1880, vol. I. 105 sq.).
Tollin tries to prove in both these books, on the strength of an obscure
passage in a letter of Servetus to CEcolampadius, that Servetus accompanied
Butzer as amanuensis in September, 1530, from Augsburg to Coburg to
see Luther. But neither Bucer nor Luther say a word about it.

2 Erlangen ed., vol. XXII. 558 sq.

8 Corpus Reformatorum, vol. VIII. 520. He mentions among the heresies
worthy of death the deliramenta Samosateni and Manichcei.

§ 139. PKOTESTANT INTOLERANCE. 707

fully and repeatedly justified the course of Calvin and the
Council of Geneva, and even held them up as models for
imitation ! In a letter to Calvin, dated Oct. 14, 1554, nearly
one year after the burning of Servetus, he wrote : —

" Reverend and dear Brother : I have read your book, in which you have
clearly refuted the horrid blasphemies of Servetus ; and I give thanks to the
Son of God, who was the Bpa/Sevrris [the awarder of your crown of victory'] in
this your combat. To you also the Church owes gratitude at the present
moment, and will owe it to the latest posterity. I perfectly assent to your
opinion. I affirm also that your magistrates did right in punishing, after
a regular trial, this blasphemous man."1

A year later, Melanchthon wrote to Bullinger, Aug. 20,
1555 : —

" Reverend and dear Brother : I have read your answer to the blasphemies
of Servetus, and I approve of your piety and opinions. I judge also that
the Genevese senate did perfectly right, to put an end to this obstinate man,
who could never cease blaspheming. And I wonder at those who disapprove
of this severity." 2

Three years later, April 10, 1557, Melanchthon incidentally
(in the admonition in the case of Theobald Thamer, who
had returned to the Roman Church) adverted again to the

1 Corpus Reformat, vol. VIII. 362 (also in Calvin's Opera, XV. 268 sq.) :
" Reverende vir et carissime frater: Legi scriptxm tuum, in quo refutasti luculenter
horrendas Serveti blasphemias: ac Fi/io Dei gratias ago, quifuit /Bpafievr-fis huius
tui agonis. Tibi quoque ecclesia et nunc et ad posteros gratitudinem debet et debebit.

TUO JUDICIO PRORSUS ASSENTIOR. AFFIRMO ETIAM VESTROS MAGISTRATES
JUSTE FECISSE, QUOD HO.MIXEM BLASPHEMUM, RE ORDINE JUDICATA, INTER-
FECERUXT."

(The rest of this letter is an answer to Calvin's request that he should
define his views on the predestinarian and eucharistic controversies. Melanch
thon declined to do this for prudential reasons, but intimated his dissent from
the carnal theory of the real presence by calling it aproXarpia, and expresses
the hope of conversing with him once more, " antequam ex hoc mortali carcere
mens discedat.")

2 Corpus Reform. VIII. 523. After thanking Bullinger for a number of
books, he adds: " Legi etiam quce de Serveti blasp/temiis respondistis, et pietatem
ac jndicia restra probo. Jud'tco etiam Setiatum Genevensem recte fecisse quod
horninem pertinacem et non omissurum blasphemias sustulit. Ac. miratus sum, esse
[a/jY/f/oi1], qui severitatem illam improbent. Mitto de ea qucestione breves pagellas,
scd tamen sententia> no sir IK testes." Tliis refers to liis consilium on the rightful
ness of the punishment of heretics by the civil magistrate (1555).

708 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

execution of Servetus, and called it "a pious and memorable
example to all posterity." l It is an example, indeed, but
certainly not for imitation.

This unqualified approval of the death penalty for heresy
and the connivance at the bigamy of Philip of Hesse are the
two dark spots on the fair name of this great and good man.
But they were errors of judgment. Calvin took great
comfort from the indorsement of the theological head of the
Lutheran Church.2

MARTIN BUCER.

Bucer, who stands third in rank among the Reformers
of Germany, was of a gentle and conciliatory disposition,
and abstained from persecuting the Anabaptists in Strass-
burg. He knew Servetus personally, and treated him at
first with kindness, but after the publication of his work
on the Trinity, he refuted it in his lectures as a " most
pestilential book."3 He even declared in the pulpit or in
the lecture-room that Servetus deserved to be disembowelled
and torn to pieces.4 From this we may infer how fully he
would nave approved his execution, had he lived till 1553.

1 Commonefactio de Thammero, vol. IX. 133 : " Dedit vero et Genevensis
Heipublicce Magistratas ante annos quatuor punitce insanabilis blasphemies adversus
Filium Dei, sublato Serveto Arragone pium et memorabile ad omnem posteritatem
exemplum."

a He wrote to Melanchthon, March 5, 1555 : " Your letter, most reverend
sir, was grateful to me, not only because whatever comes from you is dear
to me, and because it has assured me that the affection, which you entertained
for me in the commencement of our intercourse, still remains unaltered ; but
above all because in it I find a magnificent eulogy, in which you commend
my zeal in crushing the impiety of Servetus. Whence also I conjecture that
you have not been offended with the honest freedom of my admonitions."
He referred to Melanchthon again in his reply to the Reproaches of Baudouin,
1562. See above, § 137.

8 So he wrote to Ambrosius Blaurer, Dec. 29, 1531: " Pestilentissimum
ilium de Trinitate librum novi, proh dolor, et hie in publicis prcelectionibus nostris
confutavi."

4 Dignum esse, qui avulsis visceribus discerperetur." So reports Calvin
Sept. 8, 1553. This is confirmed by a letter of Professor Frecht of Tubingen
to Capito, dated Nov. 25, 1538. See Tollin, Michael Servet und Martin Butzer,

§ 139. PKOTESTANT INTOLERANCE. 709

THE Swiss CHURCHES.

The Swiss Reformers ought to have been in advance of
those of Germany on this subject, but they were not. They
advised or approved the exclusion of Roman Catholics from
the Reformed Cantons, and violent measures against Ana
baptists and Antitrinitarians. Six Anabaptists were, by
a cruel irony, drowned in the river Limmat at Zurich
by order of the government (between 1527 and 1532). l
Other Cantons took the same severe measures against the
Anabaptists. Zwingli, the most liberal among the Reform
ers, did not object to their punishment, and counselled
the forcible introduction of Protestantism into the neutral
territories and the Forest Cantons. Ochino was expelled
from Zurich and Basel (1563).

As regards the case of Servetus, the churches and magis
trates of Zurich, Schaffhausen, Basel, and Bern, on being
consulted during his trial, unanimously condemned his errors,
and advised his punishment, but without committing them
selves to the mode of punishment.2

Bullinger wrote to Calvin that God had given the Council
of Geneva a most favorable opportunity to vindicate the
truth against the pollution of heresy, and the honor of God
against blasphemy. In his Second Helvetic Confession (ch.
XXX.) he teaches that it is the duty of the magistrate to
use the sword against blasphemers. Schaffhausen fully
agreed with Zurich. Even the authorities of Basel, which
was the headquarters of the sceptical Italians and enemies

in the " Magazin f tir die Lit. des Auslandes," Berlin, 1876, and Servet und die
oberlandischen Reformatoren, Bd. I. (Michael Servet und Martin Butzer}, Berlin,
1880, pp. 232 sqq. Tollin thinks that Bucer meant the book, not the person
of Servetus ; but books have no viscera.

1 See above, § 26, pp. 87 sqq.

2 The judgments of the magistrates and ministers of Zurich, Schaffhausen,
Basel, and Bern are printed in Calvin's Opera, VIII. 808-823 (in German
and Latin). The judgment of the pastors of Ziirich, dated Oct. 2, 1553, is
also inserted in Calvin's Defensio, ibid. fol. 655-558.

710 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

of Calvin, gave the advice that Servetus, whom their own
CEcolampadius had declared a most dangerous man, be
deprived of the power to harm the Church, if all efforts
to convert him should fail. Six years afterwards the Council
of Basel, with the consent of the clergy and the University,
ordered the body of David Joris, a chiliastic Anabaptist who
had lived there under a false name (and died Aug. 25, 1556),
to be dug from the grave and burned, with his likeness and
books, by the hangman before a large multitude (1559) -1

Bern, which had advised moderation in the affair of Bolsec
two years earlier, judged more severely in the case of
Servetus, because he "had reckoned himself free to call in
question all the essential points of our religion," and
expressed the wish that the Council of Geneva might have
prudence and strength to deliver the Churches from "this
pest." Thirteen years after the death of Servetus, the
Council of Bern executed Valentino Gentile by the sword
(Sept. 10, 1566) for an error similar to but less obnoxious
than that of Servetus, and scarcely a voice was raised in
disapproval of the sentence.2

The Reformers of French Switzerland went further than
those of German Switzerland. Farel defended death by fire,
and feared that Calvin in advising a milder punishment was
guided by the feelings of a friend against his bitterest foe.
Beza wrote a special work in defence of the execution of
Servetus, whom he characterized as " a monstrous compound
of mere impiety and horrid blasphemy." 3 Peter Martyr
called him "a genuine son of the devil," whose "pestiferous
and detestable doctrines " and " intolerable blasphemies "
justified the severe sentence of the magistracy.4

1 See Xippold, Ueber Leben, Lehre und Sekte des David Joris, in the
"Zeitschrift fiir historische Theologie," 1863, No. I., and 1864, No. IV.

2 See above, § 131, p. 658.

8 " M^ on strum ex mera impietate horrendisgue blasphemiis conflatum." Vita
Calv. (AnnaL XXI. 148).

4 See the whole passage in TrechsePs Zusatze to vol. I.

§ 139. PKOTESTANT INTOLERANCE. 711

CRANMER.

The English Reformers were not behind those of the
Continent in the matter of intolerance. Several years before
the execution of Servetus, Archbishop Cranmer had per
suaded the reluctant young King Edward VI. to sign the
death-warrant of two Anabaptists — one a woman, called
Joan Bocher of Kent, and the other a foreigner from Holland,
George van Pare ; the former was burnt May 2, 1550, the
latter, April 6, 1551.

The only advocates of toleration in the sixteenth century
were Anabaptists and Antitrinitarians, who were themselves
sufferers from persecution. Let us give them credit for their
humanity.

GRADUAL TRIUMPH OF TOLERATION AND LIBERTY.

The reign of intolerance continued to the end of the
seventeenth century. It was gradually undermined during
the eighteenth century, and demolished by the combined
influences of Protestant Dissenters, as the Anabaptists,
Socinians, Arminians, Quakers, Presbyterians, Independents,
of Anglican Latitudinarians, and of philosophers, like Bayle,
Grotius, Locke, Leibnitz ; nor should we forget Voltaire and
Frederick the Great, who were unbelievers, but sincere and
most influential advocates of religious toleration ; nor
Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison in America. Protestant
Holland and Protestant England took the lead in the legal
recognition of the principles of civil and religious liberty,
and the Constitution of the United States completed the
theory by putting all Christian denominations on a parity
before the law and guaranteeing them the full enjoyment
of equal rights.

Hand in hand with the growth of tolerance went the zeal
for prison reform, the abolition of torture and cruel punish
ments, the abrogation of the slave trade, serfdom, and slavery,
the improvement of the condition of the poor and miser-

71CJ THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

able, and similar movements of philanthropy, which are the
late but genuine outgrowth of the spirit of Christianity.

§ 140. The Early Life of Servetus.

For our knowledge of the origin and youth of Servetus
we have to depend on the statements which he made at his
trials before the Roman Catholic court at Vienne in April,
1553, and before the Calvinistic court at Geneva in August
of the same year. These depositions are meagre and incon
sistent, either from defect of memory or want of honesty.
In Geneva he could not deceive the judges, as Calvin was
well acquainted with his antecedents. I give, therefore,
the preference to his later testimony.1

MICHAEL SERVETO, better known in the Latinized form
SERVETUS, also called REYES,2 was born at Villa-nueva or
Villanova in Aragon (hence " Villanovanus "), in 1509, the
year of the nativity of Calvin, his great antagonist.3 He
informed the court of Geneva that he was of an ancient and
noble Spanish family, and that his father was a lawyer and
notary by profession.

1 A. v. d. Linde, p. 3 sq., presents the contradictory statements of Servetus
in parallel columns.

2 In the title of his first book. " Reves " is an abridged anagram of Ser-
veto. Others derive it from the maiden name of his mother. But we know
nothing of his family. The form " Servede " never occurs among his con
temporaries, and not before 1597, but is used by several modern writers,
as Herzog, Guericke, Hase, Dorner, Harnack.

3 Place and date are disputed. In the trial at Vienne he stated that he
was born at Tudela in the old Spanish kingdom of Navarre, that he was then
forty-two years old, which would put his birth in 1511. In the trial at
Geneva he declared himself to be " Espagnol Arragonese de Villeneufve,"
and to be forty-four years old. This is confirmed by the author's name
on the title-page of his first book : " Per Michaelem Serveto, alias Reves ab
Aragonia Hispanum," by the subscription at the end of his Restitutio " M. S. V."
[Villanovanus] and by the name " Villeneuve," under which he was known
in France. So also Willis and v. d. Linde. But Tollin decides for Tudela
and for the year 1511. See his Servct's Kindheit und Jugend, in Kahnis*
" Zeitschrift fiir hist. Theol.," 1875.

§ 140. THE EARLY LIFE OF SERVETTJS. 713

The hypothesis that he was of Jewish or Moorish extrac
tion is an unwarranted inference from his knowledge of
Hebrew and the Koran.

He was slender and delicate in body, but precocious,
inquisitive, imaginative, acute, independent, and inclined
to mysticism and fanaticism. He seems to have received his
early education in a Dominican convent and in the Univer
sity of Saragossa, with a view at first to the clerical vocation.

He was sent by his father to the celebrated law-school of
Toulouse, where he studied jurisprudence for two or three
years. The University of Toulouse was strictly orthodox,
and kept a close watch against the Lutheran heresy. But
it was there that he first saw a complete copy of the Bible,
as Luther did after he entered the University of Erfurt.

The Bible now became his guide. He fully adopted the
Protestant principle of the supremacy and sufficiency of
the Bible, but subjected it to his speculative fancy, and
carried opposition to Catholic tradition much farther than
the Reformers did. He rejected the oecumenical orthodoxy,
while they rejected only the mediaeval scholastic orthodoxy.
It is characteristic of his mystical turn of mind that he
made the Apocalypse the basis of his speculations, while the
sober and judicious Calvin never commented on this book.

Servetus declared, in his first work, that the Bible was
the source of all his philosophy and science, and to be read a
thousand times.1 He called it a gift of God descended from
heaven.2 Next to the Bible, he esteemed the ante-Nicene
Fathers, because of their simpler and less definite teaching.
He quotes them freely in his first book.

We do not know whether, and how far, he was influenced

1 Omnem philosophiam et scientiam ego in Biblia reperio. , . . Lege obsecro
millies Sibliam." (De Trinitatis Erroribus, fol. 786 and 79.)

2 " Datus est de ccelo liber nt in eo Deum investigemus, adjuvante ad hoc fide
quce non est ille crudus sophistarum assensus, sed motus cordis, sicut dicit Scriptura,
corde creditur." (Ibid. f. 1076.) " Figmenta sunt imaginaria quce Scripture
hmites transgrediuntur." (Ibid. f. 816.)

714 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

by the writings of the Reformers. He may have read some
tracts of Luther, which were early translated into Spanish,
but he does not quote from them.1

We next find Servetus in the employ of Juan Quintana,
a Franciscan friar and confessor to the Emperor Charles V.
He seems to have attended his court at the coronation by
Pope Clement VII. in Bologna (1529), and on the journey
to the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, which forms an epoch in
the history of the Lutheran Reformation.2 At Augsburg
he may have seen Melanchthon and other leading Lutherans,
but he was too young and unknown to attract much
attention.

In the autumn of 1530 he was dismissed from the service
of Quintana ; we do not know for what reason, probably on
suspicion of heresy.

We have no account of a conversion or moral struggle in
any period of his life, such as the Reformers passed through,
lie never was a Protestant, either Lutheran or Reformed,
but a radical at war with all orthodoxy. A mere youth of
twenty-one or two, he boldly or impudently struck out an
independent path as a Reformer of the Reformation. The
Socinian society did not yet exist ; and even there he would
not have felt at home, nor would he have long been toler
ated. Nominally, he remained in the 'Roman Church, and
felt no scruple about conforming to its rites. As he stood
alone, so he died alone, leaving an influence, but no school
nor sect.

From Germany Servetus went to Switzerland and spent
some time at Basel. There he first ventilated his heresies
on the trinity and the divinity of Christ.

1 Tollin conjectures that he had read the writings of Luther, Melanchthon,
and Bucer, and was especially influenced by Erasmus.

- See Tollin, Die Beichtvuter Kaiser Karl* V., three short papers in the
" Magazin fiir die Lit. des Auslandes," 1874, and Servet anf dem Reichstag zu
Auysbunj, in Thelemann's " Evang. Reform. Kirchenzeitung," 1870, No. 17-
24.'

§ 141. THE BOOK AGAINST THE HOLY TKINITY. 715

He importuned (Ecolampadius with interviews and letters,
hoping to convert him. But (Ecolampadius was startled
and horrified. He informed his friends, Bucer, Zwingli, and
Bullinger, who happened to be at Basel in October, 1530,
that he had been troubled of late by a hot-headed Spaniard,
who denied the divine trinity and the eternal divinity of our
Saviour. Zwingli advised him to try to convince Servetus
of his error, and by good and wholesome arguments to win
him over to the truth. (Ecolampadius said that he could
make no impression upon the haughty, daring, and conten
tious man. Zwingli replied : " This is indeed a thing insuf
ferable in the Church of God. Therefore do everything
possible to prevent the spread of such dreadful blasphemy."
Zwingli never saw the objectionable book in print.

Servetus sought to satisfy (Ecolampadius by a misleading
confession of faith, but the latter was not deceived by the
explanations and exhorted him to " confess the Son of God
to be coequal and coeternal with the Father " ; otherwise
he could not acknowledge him as a Christian.

§ 141. The Book against the Holy Trinity.

Servetus was too vain and obstinate to take advice. In
the beginning of 1531, he secured a publisher for his book
on the "Errors of the Trinity," Conrad Koenig, who had
shops at Basel and Strassburg, and who sent the manuscript
to Secerius, a printer at Hagenau in Alsace. Servetus went
to that place to read the proof. He also visited Bucer and
Capito at Strassburg, who received him with courtesy and
kindness and tried to convert him, but in vain.

In July, 1531, the book appeared under the name of the
author, and was furnished to the trade at Strassburg, Frank
fort, and Basel, but nobody knew where and by whom it
was published. Suspicion fell upon Basel.

This book is a very original and, for so young a man. very
remarkable treatise on the Trinity and Incarnation in oppo-

716 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

sition to the traditional and oecumenical faith. The style
is crude and obscure, and not to be compared with Calvin's,
who at the same age and in his earliest writings showed
himself a master of lucid, methodical, and convincing state
ment in elegant and forcible Latin. Servetus was familiar
with the Bible, the ante-Nicene Fathers (Tertullian and
Irenreus), and scholastic theology, and teemed with new,
but ill-digested ideas which he threw out like firebrands.
He afterwards embodied his first work in his last, but in
revised shape. The following is a summary of the Seven
Books on the Trinity : —

In the first book he proceeds from the historical Jesus
of Nazareth, and proves, first, that this man is Jesus the
Christ; secondly, that he is the Son of God; and thirdly,
that he is God.1 He begins with the humanity in opposition
to those who begin with the Logos and, in his opinion, lose
the true Christ. In this respect he anticipates the Socinian
and modern humanitarian Christology, but not in a rational
istic sense ; for he asserts a special indwelling of God in
Christ (somewhat resembling Schleiermacher), and a deifica
tion of Christ after his exaltation (like the Socinians).2 He
rejects the identity of the Logos with the Son of God and
the doctrine of the communication of attributes. He dis
tinguishes between the Hebrew names of God: Jehovah
means exclusively the one and eternal God ; Elohim or El
or Adonai are names of God and also of angels, prophets,

1 " Primo, hie est Jesus Christus. Secundo, hie est films Dei. Tertio, hie est
Deus." (p. la.)

2 " Secundum carnem homo est, et spiritu est Deus, quia quod natum est de
spiritu, spiritus est, et spiritus est deus. Et ita Esaice 9. Puer natus est nobis,
i-ocabitur nomen eius deus fortis. Vide dare et dei nomen et fortitudinem nato
puero attributam, cui data est omnis potestas in cozlo et in terra. Et Thomas
lohannis 20. eum appellat, Deus meus, Dominus meus. Et Rom. nono CHRISTUS
dicitur in omnibus laudandus et benedicendus. Multisque aliis locis eius divinitas
ostenditur, quia exaltatus est, ut acciperet divinitatem, et nomen super omne
nomen." lOa.

§ 141. THE BOOK AGAINST THE HOLY TKINITY. 717

and kings (John 10 : 34-36). l The prologue of John speaks
of things that were, not of things that are. Everywhere
else the Bible speaks of the man Christ. The Holy Spirit
means, according to the Hebrew ruach and the Greek
pneuma, wind or breath, and denotes in the Bible now God
himself, now an angel, now the spirit of man, now a divine
impulse.

He then explains away the proof texts for the doctrine
of the Trinity, 1 John 5 : 7 (which he accepts as genuine,
though Erasmus omitted it from his first edition) ; John
10 : 30 ; 14 : 11 ; Rom. 11 : 36. The chief passages, the bap
tismal formula (Matt. 28 : 19) and the apostolic benediction
(2 Cor. 13 : 14) where the Father, the Son, and the Spirit
are co-ordinated, he understands not of three persons, but
of three dispositions of God.

In the second book he treats of the Logos, the person of
Christ, and the Spirit of God, and chiefly explains the pro
logue to the fourth Gospel. The Logos is not a metaphysical
being, but an oracle ; the voice of God and the light of the
world.2 The Logos is a disposition or dispensation in God, so
understood by Tertullian and Irenseus.3 Before the incarna
tion the Logos was God himself speaking; after the incarnation
the Logos is Jesus Christ, who makes God known to us.4

1 "Notes differentiam inter nilf proprium Dei nomen, et ^tf i^K DTl^K et
alia similia Deo attributa. Et quod Thomas lohannis 20. non lehovak, sed Elohim
et Adonai de CHRISTO dixerit, infra probabo." 14a. " Similiter et D^K de
angelis et hominibus fortibus dicitur, Psal. 88 et lob 41." 146. He identifies
Christ with the Elohim instead of Jehovah.

2 " A.6yos non philosophicam illain rem, sed oraculum, vocem, sermonem, eloquium
Dei sonat. Usurpatur enim a verbo Keyu, quod est dico." 47a.

3 " Per sacramentum Verbi intelligit quandam in Deo dispositionem sen dispen-
sationem, qua placitum est ei arcanum voluntatis suce nobis revelare. Et hoc Ter-
tullianus olKovo/j.iav, et Irenceus dispositionem scepissime. appellant." 48a.

* " Verbum in Deo proferente, est ipsemet Deus loquens. Post prolationem est ipsa
caro, sen Verbum Dei, antequam sermo ille caro Jieret, intelligebatur ipsum Dei
oraculum infra nubis caliqinem nondum manifestatum, quia Deus erat ille sermo.
Et postquam Verbum homo factum est, per Verbum intelligimus ipsum CHRISTUM,
qui est Verbum Dei, et vox Dei, nam, quasi vox, est ex ore Dei prolatus." 48a and 6.
He refers for proof to Rev. 19 : 13 : rb ovo/ma avrov 'O \6yos rov 0eou.

718 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

All that God before did through the Word, Christ does in
the flesh. To him God has given the kingdom and the power
to atone and to gather all things in him.

The third book is an exposition of the relation of Christ
to the divine Logos.

The fourth book discusses the divine dispositions or mani
festations. God appeared in the Son and in the Spirit. Two
divine manifestations are substituted for the orthodox tri-
personality. The position of the Father is not clear ; - he is
now represented as the divinity itself, now as a disposition
and person. The orthodox christology of two natures in
one person is entirely rejected. God has no nature (from
nasci), and a person is not a compound of two natures or
things, but a unit.

The fifth book is a worthless speculative exposition of the
Hebrew names of God. The Lutheran doctrine of justifica
tion is incidentally attacked as calculated to make man
lazy and indifferent to good works.

The sixth book shows that Christ is the only fountain of
all true knowledge of God, who is incomprehensible in
himself, but revealed himself in the person of his Son. He
who sees the Son sees the Father.

The seventh and last book is an answer to objections, and
contains a new attack on the doctrine of the Trinity, which
was introduced at the same time with the secular power of
the pope. Servetus probably believed in the fable of the
donation of Constantme.

It is not surprising that this book gave great offence
to Catholics and Protestants alike, and appeared to them
blasphemous. Servetus calls the Trinitarians tritheists and
atheists.1 He frivolously asked such questions as whether
God had a spiritual wife or was without sex.2 He calls the

1 " Tritheitce . . . Athei, hoc est sine Deo." 2lb.

2 " Debuissent dicere quod habebat [Dens'] uxorem quandam spiritualem, vel
quod solus ipse masculo-foemineus aut Hermaphroditus, simul erat pater et mater."

§ 141. THE BOOK AGAINST THE HOLY TRINITY. 719

three gods of the Trinitarians a deception of the devil, yea
(in his later writings), a three-headed monster.1

Zwingli and CEcolampadius died a few months after the
publication of the book, but condemned its contents before
hand. Luther's and Bucer's views on it have already been
noticed. Melanchthon felt the difficulties of the trinitarian
and christological problems and foresaw future controversies.
He gave his judgment in a letter to his learned friend
Camerarius (dated 5 Id. Febr. 1533) : —

" You ask me what I think of Servetus ? I see him indeed sufficiently
sharp and subtle in disputation, but I do not give him credit for much
depth. He is possessed, as it seems to me, of confused imaginations, and his
thoughts are not well matured on the subjects he discusses. He manifestly
talks foolishness when he speaks of justification, irepl rr/s rpidSos [on the
subject of the Trinity] you know, I have always feared that serious difficul
ties would one day arise. Good God ! to what tragedies will not these ques
tions give occasion in times to come : e? forti/ virovraffis 6 \6yos [is the Logos
an hypostasis] ? et ecmv vir6ffra.(ns rb Trvev/j.a [is the Holy Spirit an hyposta-
sis] ? For my own part I refer to those passages of Scripture that bid us
call on Christ, which is to ascribe divine honors to him, and find them full
of consolation." 2

396. This reminds one of the reasoning of the Mohammedans that God has
no wife, therefore he can have no son. He approves of the objection of the
Turks: "Nee minim, si Turd nos asinarios vacant, postquam nos Deum vocare
asinum non erubescimus." 12a.

1 The last expression I could not find in the work De Trinitatis Erroribus,
but it occurs in his letters to Calvin, and in a lettter to Poupin, where he
says : " Pro uno Deo habetis tricipitem cerberum." Calvin's Opera, VIII. 750.
It was made the chief ground of the charge of blasphemy at the trial in
Geneva. " Un Dieu parti/ en trois . . . est un diable a trois testes comme le
Cerberus que les Poetes anciens ont appelLe le chien d'enfer, un monstre." Ibid.
728, Art. IX. Tollin, in his article Der Verfasser de Trinitatis Erroribus
(" Jahrbiicher fiir protest. Theologie," 1891, p. 414), derives these offensive
phrases from the papal controversialist Cochlaeus, who in his Lutherus septiceps,
1529, says : " Quid ad hcec Janus Bifrons ? Quid Geryon Triceps ? Quid
Cerberus trifaux? fabulce sunt poetarum et jocosa figmenta." Cochlaeus com
pared these fables with the seven-capped Luther, who surpassed them all in
monstrosity.

2 He adds in Greek that it is not profitable to inquire curiously into the
ideas and differences of the divine persons. Opera, ed. Bretschneider, II. 630,
and his letter to Brenz, July, 1533, II. 660. Also Tollin, PA. Melanchthon und
M. Servet, Berlin, 1876.

720 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Cochlseus directed the attention of Quintana, at the Diet
of Regensburg, in 1532, to the book of Servetus which was
sold there, and Quintana at once took measures to suppress
it. The Emperor prohibited it, and the book soon dis
appeared.

Servetus published in 1532 two dialogues on the Trinity,
and a treatise on Justification. He retracted, in the preface,
all he had said in his former work, not, however, as false,
but as childish.1 He rejected the Lutheran doctrine of justi
fication, and also both the Lutheran and Zwinglian views
of the sacrament. He concluded the book by invoking
a malediction on " all tyrants of the Church." 2

§ 142. Servetus as a Geographer.

As Servetus was repulsed by the Reformers of Switzerland
and Germany, he left for France and assumed the name of
MICHEL DE VILLENEUVE. His real name and his obnoxious
books disappeared from the sight of the world till they
emerged twenty years later at Vienne and at Geneva. He
devoted himself to the study of mathematics, geography,
astrology, and medicine.

In 1534 he was in Paris, and challenged the young Calvin
to a disputation, but failed to appear at the appointed hour.

He spent some time at Lyons as proof-reader and pub
lisher of the famous printers, Melchior and Caspar Trechsel.
He issued through them, in 1535, under the name of " Villa-
novanus," a magnificent edition of Ptolemy's Geography,
with a self-laudatory preface, which concludes with the hope
that uno one will underestimate the labor, though pleasant

1 " Quce nuper contra receptam de Trinitate sententiam, septem libris, scripsi,
omnia nunc, candide lector, retracto. Non quia falsa sint, sed quia imperfecta,
et tamquam a parvulo parvulis scripta. . . . Quod autem ita barbarus, confnsus et
incorrectus, prior liber prodierit, imperitice mece et typography incurice adscribendus
cst."

2 " Perdat Dominus omnes ecclesice tyrannos. Amen"

§ 142. SERVETUS AS A GEOGRAPHER. 721

in itself, that is implied in the collation of our text with that
of earlier editions, unless it be some Zoilus of contracted
brow, who cannot look without envy upon the zealous labors
of others." A second and improved edition appeared in
1541.1

The discoveries of Columbus and his successors gave
a strong impulse to geographical studies, and called forth
several editions of the work of Ptolemy the famous Alex
andrian geographer and astronomer of the second century.2
The edition of Villeneuve is based upon that of Pirkheimer
of Niirnberg, which appeared at Strassburg, 1525, with fifty
charts, but contains considerable improvements, and gave to
the author great reputation. It is a very remarkable work,
considering that Servetus was then only twenty-six years of
age. A year later Calvin astonished the world with an
equally precocious and far more important and enduring
work — the Institutes of the Christian Religion.

The most interesting features in the edition of Villeneuve

1 The following is the full title of the second edition which I found (to
gether with a copy of the first) in the library of the American Geographical
Society at New York : —

" Claudii | PTOLEM^EI | ALEXAN | drini | Geographies Enarrationis, \ Libri
Octo. | Ex Bilibaldi Pircke \ ymheri tralatione, sed ad Grseca et prisca exem-
plaria a Michaele Villanouano | secundo recogniti, et locis innumeris denuo
castigati. Adiecta insuper ab eodem scho | Ha, quibus et difficilis ille Primus
Liber nunc primum explicatur, et exoleta Urbium | nomina ad nostri seculi
morem exponuntur. Quinquaginta illae quoque cum ueterum turn | recentium
Tabulag adnectuntur, variisque incolentium ritus et mores explicantur. . . .
Prostant Lugduni apud Hugonem a Porta. | MDXLI." fol. Dedicated ".4m-
plissimo illustrissimoque ac reverend issimo D. Dno Petro Palmerio, Archiepiscopo
et Comiti Viennensi Michael Villanouanus Medicus G. D." Dated " Viennse
pridie Cal. Martii, MDXLI." The last page has the imprimatur of Caspar
Trechsel, Viennae, 1541. The work is illustrated with fifty maps. Willis
(pp. 86 sqq.) gives condensed translations of some passages, which I have
used, and compared with the original. Tollin represents Servetus as a fore
runner of Karl Ritter in comparative geography, Michael Servet als Geograph,
1875 (pp. 182).

2 Editions were published at Rome, Bologna, Strassburg (1523 and 1525),
Basel (1533, with a preface of Erasmus ; 1546), Venice (1558). The last and
best Graeco-Latin edition of Ptolemy is by Carl Miiller, Paris, 1883 sqq.

722 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

are his descriptions of countries and nations. The following
extracts give a fair idea, and have some bearing on the church
history of the times : —

" The SPANIARD is of a restless disposition, apt enough of understanding,
but learning imperfectly or amiss, so that you shall find a learned Spaniard
almost anywhere sooner than in Spain.1 Half-informed, he thinks himself
brimful of information, and always pretends to more knowledge than he has
in fact. He is much given to vast projects never realized ; and in conversa
tion he delights in subtleties and sophistry. Teachers commonly prefer to
speak Spanish rather than Latin in the schools and colleges of the country ;
but the people in general have little taste for letters, and produce few books
themselves, mostly procuring those they want, from France. . . . The people
have many barbarous notions and usages, derived by implication from their
old Moorish conquerors and fellow-denizens. . . . The women have a custom,
that would be held barbarous in France, of piercing their ears and hanging
gold rings in them, often set with precious stones. They besmirch their
faces, too, with minium and ecruse — red and white lead — and walk about
on clogs a foot or a foot and a half high, so that they seem to walk above
rather than on the earth. The people are extremely temperate, and the
women never drink wine. . . . Spaniards are notably the most superstitious
people in the world in their religious notions; but they are brave in the field,
of signal endurance under privation and difficulty, and by their voyages of
discovery have spread their name over the face of the globe."

" ENGLAND is wonderfully well-peopled, and the inhabitants are long-
lived. Tall in stature, they are fair in complexion, and have blue eyes.
They are brave in war, and admirable bowmen. . . ."

"The people of SCOTLAND are hot-tempered, prone to revenge, and fierce
in their anger ; but valiant in war, and patient beyond belief of cold, hunger,
and fatigue. They are handsome in person, and their clothing and language
are the same as those of the Irish ; their tunics being dyed yellow, their legs
bare, and their feet protected by sandals of undressed hide. They live
mainly on fish and flesh. They are not a particularly religious people. . . .'

" The ITALIANS make use in their everyday talk of the most horrid oaths
and imprecations. Holding all the rest of the world in contempt, and calling
them barbarians, they themselves have nevertheless been alternately the prey
of the French, the Spaniards, and the Germans. . . ." 2

" GERMANY is overgrown by vast forests, and defaced by frightful swamps.
Its climate is as insufferably hot in summer as it is bitterly cold in winter. . . .

1 " Ut alibi potius guam in ipsa Hispania Hispanum doctum invenias."

2 « Irrident Neapolitans Calabros, Calabri Appulos, hos autem omnes Romani,
Romanes Hetrusci, quos et alii vicissim irrident : quin et mortales cceteros omnes
irrident Itali, contemnunt et barbaros appellant : cum sint ipsi tamen nunc Hispa-
nis, nunc Gallis, nunc Germanis praedce expositi. . . . Italia in universum magis
adhuc superstitiosa gens quam pugnat. Superba Roma, gentium imperio viduata,
sedes facia summi pontificis."

§ 143. SERVETUS AS A PHYSICIAN. 723

Hungary is commonly said to produce oxen ; Bavaria, swine ; Franconia,
onions, turnips, and licorice; Swabia, harlots; Bohemia, heretics; Switzer
land, butchers; Westphalia, cheats; and the whole country gluttons and
drunkards. . . . The Germans, however, are a religious people ; not easily
turned from opinions they have once espoused, and not readily persuaded to
concord in matters of schism ; every one valiantly and obstinately defending
tfie heresy he has himself adopted." l

This unfavorable account of Germany, borrowed in part
from Tacitus, was much modified and abridged in the second
edition, in which it appears as "a pleasant country with
a temperate climate." Of the Swabians he speaks as a
singularly gifted people.2 The fling at the ignorance and
superstition of the Spaniards, his own countrymen, was also
omitted.

The most interesting part of this geographical work on
account of its theological bearing, is the description of Pales
tine. He declared in the first edition that "it is mere boast
ing and untruth when so much of excellence is ascribed
to this land ; the experience of merchants and travellers who
have visited it, proving it to be inhospitable, barren, and
altogether without amenity. Wherefore you may say that
the land was promised indeed, but is of little promise when
spoken of in everyday terms." He omitted this passage in
the second edition in deference to Archbishop Palmier.
Nevertheless, it was made a ground of accusation at the trial
of Servetus, for its apparent contradiction with the Mosaic
account of the land " flowing with milk and honey."

§ 143. Servetus as a Physician, Scientist, and Astrologer.

Being supplied with the necessary funds, Servetus returned
to Paris in 1536 and took his degrees as magister and doctor
of medicine. He acquired great fame as a physician.

1 " Sunt enim Germani in Dei cultum propensi, semel tamen imbutas opiniones
non facile deserunt, nee in schismate queunt ad concordiam reduci, sed hceresim
quisque suam valide tuetur."

2 " Suabia, ingenio singulari prcedita, prwstantissima Germanics a Plutarcho
dicta."

724 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

The medical world was then divided into two schools, —
the Galenists, who followed Hippocrates and Galen, and
the Averrhoists, who followed Averrhoes and Avicenna.
Servetus was a pupil of Champier, and joined the Greek
school, but had an open eye to the truth of the Arabians.

He published in 1537 a learned treatise on Syrups and
their use in medicine. It is his most popular book, and
passed through four editions in ten years.1

He discovered the pulmonary circulation of the blood or
the passage of the blood from the right to the left chamber
of the heart through the lungs by the pulmonary artery and
vein. He published it, not separately, but in his work on
the Restitution of Christianity, as a part of his theological
speculation on the vital spirits. The discovery was burnt
and buried with this book; but nearly a hundred years
later William Harvey (1578-1658), independently, made the
same discovery.2

Servetus lectured in the University on geography and
astrology, and gained much applause, but excited also the
envy and ill-will of his colleagues, whom he treated with
overbearing pride and contempt.

He wrote an " Apologetic Dissertation on Astrology," 3
and severely attacked the physicians as ignoramuses, who
in return denounced him as an impostor and wind-bag. The

1 Syroporum universa Ratio ad Galeni censuram diligenter exposita, etc. Pari-
siis ex officina Simonis Colinsei, 1537 ; Venetiis, 1545 and 1548, and Lugduni,
1546 and 1547. Comp. Willis, ch. XL 111 sq. ; v. d. Linde, pp. 53 sqq. (with
the full title on p. 54).

2 Restit. Christ., bk. V. p. 170. See G. Sismond, The unnoticed Theories of
Servetus, London, 1826 ; Flourens, Histoire de la de'couverte de la circulation
du sang, Paris, 1854; sec. ed. 1857; Tollin, Die Entdeckung des Blutkreislaufs
durch Michael Servet, Jena, 1876 (comp. his Kritische Bemerkungen uber Harvey
und seine Vorgdnger, 1882) ; Willis (who is a doctor of medicine), pp. 210
sqq. ; and v. d. Linde, pp. 123 sqq. Harvey probably never saw the Restitutio,
and is therefore as much entitled to the merit of an original discovery as
Columbus, who was ignorant of the expeditions of the Norsemen to North
America.

» Reprinted in Berlin, 1880.

§ 144. SERVETUS AT VIENNE. 725

senate of the University sided with the physicians, and the
Parliament of Paris forbade him to lecture on astrology
and to prophesy from the stars (1538). l

He left Paris for Charlieu, a small town near Lyons, and
practised medicine for two or three years.

At his thirtieth year he thought that, after the example
of Christ, he should be rebaptized, since his former baptism
was of no value. He denied the analogy of circumcision.
The Jews, he says, circumcised infants, but baptized only
adults. This was the practice of John the Baptist; and
Christ, who had been circumcised on the eighth day, was
baptized when he entered the public ministry. The promise
is given to believers only, and infants have no faith. Bap
tism is the beginning of regeneration, and the entrance into
the kingdom of heaven. He wrote two letters to Calvin on
the subject, and exhorted him to follow his example.2

His arrogance made him so unpopular that he had to leave
Charlieu.3

§ 144. Servetus at Vienne. His Annotations to the Bible.

Villeneuve now repaired to Vienne in Dauphine and settled
down as a physician under the patronage of Pierre Palmier,
one of his former hearers in Paris, and a patron of learning,
who had been appointed archbishop of that see. He was pro
vided with lodgings in the archiepiscopal palace, and made
a comfortable living by his medical practice. He spent
thirteen years at Vienne, from 1540 to 1553, which were
probably the happiest of his fitful life. He conformed to
the Catholic religion, and was on good terms with the higher

1 V. d. Linde, pp. 65 sqq. In this respect Servetus was behind Calvin,
who boldly attacked the superstition of astrology (see above, § 135, pp. 676
sqq.); but, strange to say, even in our days the " Vox Stellarum" is regularly
printed in England and finds thousands of readers. Willis, p. 125.

2 Ep. XV. and XVI. ad Calv., in Christianismi Restitutio, pp. 613-619.

3 Bolsec (p. 18 sq.) reports that Servetus was "constraint de se partir de
Charlieu pour les folies lesquelles ilfaisoit."

726 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

clergy. Nobody suspected his heresy, or knew anything of
his connection with the work on the " Errors of the Trinity."

He devoted his leisure to his favorite literary and theo
logical studies, and kept the publishers of Lyons busy. We
have already mentioned the second edition of his "Ptol
emy," which he dedicated to Palmier with a complimentary
preface.

A year afterwards (1542) he published a new and elegant
edition of the Latin Bible of Santes Pagnini, a learned
Dominican monk and pupil of Savonarola, but an enemy of
the Reformed religion.1 He accompanied it with explana
tory notes, aiming to give "the old historical but hitherto
neglected sense of the Scriptures." He anticipated modern
exegesis in substituting the typical for the allegorical method
and giving to the Old Testament prophecies an immediate
bearing on their times, and a remote bearing on Christ.
Thus he refers Psalms II., VIII., XXII., and CX. to David,
as the type of Christ. It is not likely that he learned this
method from Calvin, and it is certain that Calvin did not
learn it from him. But Serve tus goes further than Calvin,
and anticipates the rationalistic explanation of Deutero-
Isaiah by referring " the servant of Jehovah" to Cyrus as the
anointed of the Lord. Rome put his comments on the Index
(1559). Calvin brought them up against him at the trial,
and, without knowing that the text of the book was literally
taken from another edition without acknowledgment, said
that he dexterously filched five hundred livres from the pub
lisher in payment for the vain trifles and impious follies with
which he had encumbered almost every page of the book.2

1 The first edition of Pagnini had appeared at Lyons, 1528. The transla
tion of the Old Testament rests on a good knowledge of Hebrew, and was
much used by Protestants, e.g. Robert Olivetan in his French version.

2 Willis (p. 142) charges Servetus with gross plagiarism, since his edition
is a literal reprint of the edition of Melchior Novesianus of Cologne, 1541,
while he declared in the preface that his text was corrected in numberless
places by himself.

§ 145. CORRESPONDENCE OF SERVETUS. 727

§ 145. Correspondence of Servetus with Calvin and Poupin.

While engaged in the preparation of his last work at
Vienne, Servetus opened a correspondence with Calvin
through Jean Frellon, a learned publisher at Lyons and
a personal friend of both.1 He sent him a copy of his book
as far as then finished, and told him that he would find in it
" stupendous things never heard of before." 2 He also proposed
to him three questions : 1) Is the man Jesus Christ the Son
of God, and how ? 2) Is the kingdom of God in man, when
does man enter into it, and when is he born again ? 3) Must
Christian baptism presuppose faith, like the Lord's Supper,
and to what end are both sacraments instituted in the New
Testament ? 3

Calvin seems to have had no time to read the whole manu
script, but courteously answered the questions to the effect,
1) that Christ is the Son of God both according to his divine
nature eternally begotten, and according to his human nature
as the Wisdom of God made flesh ; 2) that the kingdom of
God begins in man when he is born again, but that the
process of regeneration is not completed in a moment, but
goes on till death; 3) that faith is necessary for baptism,
but not in the same personal way as in the Lord's Supper;
for according to the type of circumcision the promise was
given also to the children of the faithful. Baptism and the
Lord's Supper are related to each other as circumcision and
the passover. He referred to his books for details, but
was ready to give further explanation if desired.4

1 Frellon employed Servetus as an editor and translator, and was proba
bly a Protestant, as we may infer from his friendly relation to Calvin. But
Henry (III. 129) supposes that he was a Catholic. Henry (III. 129) thinks
that the correspondence began as early as 1540.

2 See the letter of Calvin to Farel, quoted on p. 692.

8 Calvin gives the questions and answers in his Refutatio Errornm Mich.
Serveti, Opera, VIII. 482-484. Servetus omits them in the Restitntio.

4 " Sed quid mihi videor omnibus objectis alibi satisfecisse, fusiorem explica-
tionem inde peti melim. Si quid deest, paratus sum adjicere, sifuero admonitus."
Op,ra, VIII. 484.

728 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Servetus was by no means satisfied with the answer, and
wrote back that Calvin made two or three Sons of God ; that
the Wisdom of God spoken of by Solomon was allegorical and
impersonal; that regeneration took place in the moment of
baptism by water and the spirit, bnt never in infant baptism.
He denied that circumcision corresponded to baptism. He
put five new theological questions to Calvin, and asked him
to read the fourth chapter on baptism in the manuscript of
the Restitutio which he had sent him.1

To these objections Calvin sent another and more lengthy
response.2 He again offered further explanation, though he
had no time to write whole books for him, and had discussed
all these topics in his Institutes?

So far there is nothing to indicate any disposition in
Calvin to injure Servetus. On the contrary we must admire
his patience and moderation in giving so much of his precious
time to the questions of a troublesome stranger and pro
nounced opponent. Servetus continued to press Calvin with
letters, and returned the copy of the Institutes with copious
critical objections. " There is hardly a page," says Calvin,
" that is not defiled by his vomit." 4

1 " Rogo te per Deum, postquam pollicitus es te paratum reliqua adjicere, si
fueris admonitus, doce me primo quce est verajides, et qualiter ilia a spiritu regene-
rationis viviftcetur. iSecundo, an sine promissione possit quis justificari. Tertio,
qualis sit internus homo, non ex sanguinibus genitus, sed ex Deo. Quarto, quis est
homo ille qui a Christo alitur in ccena, an vere, an imaginarie. Quinto, quce sit
gratia adventus Christi. Annon eousque regnavit inors ? annon patres omnes
fuerunt antea in inferno? Demum te precor, ne graveris iterum legere quartum
Jibrum de Baptismo [in the printed Restitutio it is entitled De Regeneration
superna, et de regno Antichristi, pp. 355-576]. Nam videris eum nondum legfsse.
Deus misereatur nostri. Amen." Opera, VIII. 486.

2 VIII. 487-495.

3 " Quod me rogas tibi de aliis quoque capitibus respondeam, id facerem, si
possem breviter. Neque enim satis divino quid proprie desideres. Mayis autem
sum occupatus quam ut tibi uni vacet libros integros scribere. Deinde nihil quceris
quod non reperias in mea Institutione, si illinc petere libeat. Quanquam labori non
parcerem, si mihi notus esset scopus quo tendis." P. 494.

* " Quoscunque meos libros nancisci potuit, non destitit insulsis conviciis farcire,
ut nullam paginam, a suo vomitu puram relinqueret." P. 481. Comp. the French
in the fifth footnote.

§ 145. CORRESPONDENCE OF SERVETUS. 729

Calvin sent a final answer to the questions of Servetus,
which is lost, together with a French letter to Frellon, which
is preserved.1 This letter is dated Feb. 13, 1546, under his
well-known pseudonym of Charles Despeville, and is as
follows : —

" Seigneur Jehan, As your last letter was brought to me on my departure,
I had no leisure to reply to the enclosure it contained. After my return
I use the first moment of my leisure to comply with your desire; not indeed
that I have any great hope of proving serviceable to such a man, seeing him
disposed as I do. But I will try once more, if there be any means left of
bringing him to reason, and this will happen when God shall have so wrought
in him that he has become altogether another man. Since he has written to
me in so proud a spirit, I have been led to write to him more sharply than
is my wont, being minded to take him down a little in his presumption.2
But I could not do otherwise. For I assure you there is no lesson he needs
so much to learn as humility. This must come to him through the grace of
God, not otherwise. But we, too, ought to lend a helping hand. If God give
such grace to him and to us that the present answer will turn to his profit,
I shall have cause to rejoice. If he persists, however, in the style he has
hitherto seen fit to use, you will only lose your time in soliciting me further
in his behalf; for I have other affairs that concern me more nearly, and
I shall make it a matter of conscience not to busy myself further, not doubt
ing that he is a Satan who would divert me from more profitable studies.
Let me beg of you, therefore, to be content with what I have already done,
unless you see occasion for acting differently."

Frellon sent this letter to Villeneuve by a special messen
ger, together with a note in which he addresses him as his
" dear brother and friend." 3

On the same day Calvin wrote the famous letter to Farel
already quoted. He had arrived at the settled conviction

1 Calvin's letter to Jean Frellon and Frellon's letter to Servetus, both in
French, found their way into the judicial archives of the archbishop of
Vienne, and were first published by the Abbe d'Artigny, Paris, 1749 (in Nou-
veaux Me'moires d'histoire, torn. II. 70), and independently from a copy of the
original, by Mosheim, Helmstadt, 1750 (in his Neue Nachrichten von Mich.
Serveto, pp. 89,90). They are reprinted in Henry, III. 132, and in Calvin's
Opera, VIII. 833 sq.

2 "Je luy ay bien voulu rabbatre un petit de son orgueil, parlant a luy plus dure-
ment que ma coustume ne porte"

3 On the envelope is written: "A man bon frere et amy maistre Michel
Villanovanus Docteur en Medicine soyt donne'e cesfe presente a Vienne."

730 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

that Servetus was an incorrigible and dangerous heretic, who
deserved to die.1 But he did nothing to induce him to come
to Geneva, as he wished, and left him severely alone. In
1548 he wrote to Viret that he would have nothing more
to do with this desperately obstinate heretic, who shall force
no more letters from him.2

Servetus continued to trouble Calvin, and published in his
Restitutio no less than thirty letters to him, but without
dates and without replies from Calvin.3 They are conceived
in a haughty and self-sufficient spirit. He writes to the
greatest divine of the age, not as a learner, or even an equal,
but as a superior. In the first of these printed letters he
charges Calvin with holding absurd, confused, and contra
dictory opinions on the sonship of Christ, on the Logos, and
on the Trinity. In the second letter he tells him : " You
make three Sons of God : the human nature is a son to you,
the divine nature is a son, and the whole Christ is a son. . . .
All such tritheistic notions are a three-headed illusion of
the Dragon, which easily crept in among the sophists in the
present reign of Antichrist. Or have you not read of the
spirit of the dragon, the spirit of the beast, the spirit of
the false prophets, three spirits? Those who acknowledge
the trinity of the beast are possessed by three spirits of
demons. These three spirits incite war against the immacu-

1 See p. 692. Bolsec speaks of a similar letter to Viret, from which he
quotes this passage : " Servetus cupit hue venire, sed a me accessitus. Ego autem
nunquam committam, ut fidem meam eotenus obstrictam habeat. lam enim constitu-
tum habeo, si venial, nunquam pati, ut salvus exeat." But no such letter has
been found. Perhaps it was the same as the letter to Farel, which may have
been sent first to Viret, as Farel was at that time in Metz (Henry, III. 133).
Bolsec asserts also (p. 21) that Calvin informed the Cardinal de Tournon of
the heresy of Servetus, but that the Cardinal laughed at the idea of one
heretic accusing another.

2 "A me nihilposthac extorquebit." See Henry, II. 460; III. 134.

3 Restit. pp. 577-664; reprinted in Calvin's Opera, VIII. 645-714, from
Chr. Theoph. de Murr's ed., with marginal variations of the Paris copy. The
manuscripts are not extant.

§ 145. CORRESPONDENCE OF SERVETUS. 731

late Lamb, Jesus Christ (Apoc. 16). False are all the invis
ible gods of the Trinitarians, as false as the gods of the
Babylonians. Farewell." 1 He begins the third letter with
the oft-repeated warning (scepius te monui) not to admit that
impossible monster of three things in God. In another letter
he calls him a reprobate and blasphemer (improbus et blas-
phemus) for calumniating good works. He charges him
with ignorance of the true nature of faith, justification,
regeneration, baptism, and the kingdom of heaven.

These are fair specimens of the arrogant, irritating, and even
insulting tone of his letters. At last Servetus himself broke
off his correspondence with Calvin, who, it seems, had long
ceased to answer them, but he now addressed his colleagues.
He wrote three letters to Abel Poupin, who was minister at
Geneva from 1543 to 1556, when he died. The last is pre
served, and was used in evidence at the trial.2 It is not
dated, but must have been written in 1548 or later. Servetus
charges the Reformed Christians of Geneva that they had
a gospel without a God, without true faith, without good
works ; and that instead of the true God they worshipped
a three-headed Cerberus. " Your faith in Christ," he con
tinues, " is a mere pretence and without effect ; your man
is an inert trunk, and your God a fabulous monster of
the enslaved will. You reject baptismal regeneration and

1 " Draconis fuit hcec triceps illusio, quce in sophistas facile irrepsit, instantc
regno Antichristi. An non legisti ibi spiritum draconis, spiritum bestice, et spiritum
pseudoprophetce tres spiritus? Tres sunt vere d&moniorum spiritus, a quibus occv-
pati tenentur, qui bestice trinitatem agnoscunt, Orbem hi tres spiritus concitant contra
agnum immaculatum lesum Christum, jilium Dei, apo. 16. Falsi ergo sunt trinita-
riorum invisibles dii, adeo falsi, sicut dii Babyloniorum : cum prcesertim dii illi
in Babylone colantur. Vale." Restit. pp. 580, 581.

2 It was not signed, but written very legibly by his own hand, and was
acknowledged as his. Henry gives a facsimile of it at the end of his third
volume, from the archives of Geneva. It is reprinted in Opera, VIII. 750 sq.
" Every line of this letter," as Dver (p. 309) well says, " betrays the heated
and fanatical imagination of the writer, and his hatred of Calvin and the
Genevese Church."

732 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

shut the kingdom of heaven against men. Woe unto you,
woe, woe ! " 1

He concludes this remarkable letter with the prediction
that he would die for this cause and become like unto his
Master.2

§ 146. " The Restitution of Christianity."

During his sojourn at Vienne, Serve tus prepared his chief
theological work under the title, " The Restitution of Christi
anity." He must have finished the greater part of it in manu
script as early as 1546, seven years before its publication in
print; for in that year, as we have seen, he sent a copy to
Calvin, which he tried to get back to make some corrections,
but Calvin had sent it to Viret at Lausanne, where it was
detained. It was afterwards used at the trial and ordered
by the Council of Geneva to be burnt at the stake, together
with the printed volume.3

1 " Evangelium vestrum est sine uno Deo, sine fide vera, sine bonis operibus.
Pro uno Deo habetis tricipitem cerberum, pro fide vera habetis fatale somnium, et
opera bona dicitis esse inanes picturas. Christi fides est vobis merus fucus, nihil
efficiens ; homo est vobis iners truncus, et Deus est vobis servi arbitrii chimcera.
Regenerationem ex aqua cozlestem non agnoscitis, sed velut fabulam habetis. Megnum
ccelorum clauditis ante homines, ut rem imaginariam a nobis exdudendo. Vce
vobis, vce, vce!"

2 " Mihi ob earn rem moriendum esse certo scio, sed non propterea animo deficior,
ut fiam discipulus similis prceceptori. Hoc doleo, quod per vos non licuit mihi
emendare locos aliquot in scriptis meis, quce sunt apud Calvinum. Vale, et a me
non amplius literas exspecta. Super custodiam meam stabo, contemplabor, et
videbo quid sit dicturus. Nam veniet, certe veniet, et non tardabit."

3 He declared at the trial in Geneva, Aug. 17, 1553, that he sent a copy
to Calvin about six years before, in order to get his judgment (" il y a environ
six ans, pour en avoir son jugement"). Opera, VIII. 734. Calvin informed
Farel, Feb. 13, 1546, that Servetus had sent him a large volume of ravings,
which must be the Eestitutio.

Baron F. de Schickler, President of the " Societe' de 1'Histoire du Protes
tantism fran^ais," informs me (June 3, 1892) that the library of this society
(52 rue des Saint Peres, Paris) possesses a manuscript copy of the Restitutio,
which was made with great accuracy, as he thinks, in 1613, from a copy that
existed at that time in the library of Cassel. But it seems that it was tran
scribed from a printed copy, for on the first page of the MS. is written:
" Hie liber erat in octavo (uf loquuntur^) impressus, et paginas continebat 734 [the

§ 146. "THE RESTITUTION OF CHRISTIANITY." 733

The proud title indicates the pretentious and radical char
acter of the book. It was chosen, probably, with reference to
Calvin's " Institution of the Christian Religion." In opposi
tion to the great Reformer he claimed to be a Restorer. The
Hebrew motto on the title-page was taken from Dan. 12:1:
" And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince ";
the Greek motto from Rev. 12:7: " And there was war in
heaven, " which is followed by the words, " Michael and
his angels going forth to war with the dragon; and the
dragon warred, and his angels ; and they prevailed not,
neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the
great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is
called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world."

The identity of the Christian name of the author with the
name of the archangel is significant. Servetus fancied that
the great battle with Antichrist was near at hand or had
already begun, and that he was one of Michael's warriors,
if not Michael himself.1

His " Restitution of Christianity " was a manifesto of war.
The woman in the twelfth chapter of Revelation he under
stood to be the true Church; her child, whom God saves,
is the Christian faith ; the great red dragon with seven heads
and horns is the pope of Rome, the Antichrist predicted by
Daniel, Paul, and John. At the time of Constantine and
the Council of Nicsea, which divided the one God into three
parts, the dragon began to drive the true Church into the
wilderness, and retained his power for twelve hundred and
sixty prophetic days or years ; but now his reign is approach
ing to a close.

number of the printed pages]. Pertinebat ad Mauricii illustratissimi Hessice
principis ac Dom. bibliothecam quce Cisellis est, urbe illius reaionis metropoli et
principis sede."

1 In the first Dialogue on the Trinity between Peter and Michael. Peter
says : " En adest, Servetus est, quern ego qucerebam" Restit. p. 199. This is a
direct assertion of his authorship which he concealed on the title-page, and
only intimated on the last page by the initials " M. S. V."

734 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

He was fully conscious of a divine mission to overthrow
the tyranny of the papal and Protestant Antichrist, and to
restore Christianity to its primitive purity. " The task we
have undertaken," he says in the preface, "is sublime in
majesty, easy in perspicuity, and certain in demonstration;
for it is no less than to make God known in his substantial
manifestation by the Word and his divine communication
by the Spirit, both comprised in Christ alone, through whom
alone do we plainly discern how the deity of the Word and
the Spirit may be apprehended in man. . . . We shall now
see God, unseen before, with his face revealed, and behold
him shining in ourselves, if we open the door and enter in.
It is high time to open this door and this way of the light,
without which no one can read the sacred Scriptures, or
know God, or become a Christian." Then he gives a brief
summary of topics, and closes the preface with this prayer : —

" O Christ Jesus, Son of God, who hast been given to us from heaven, who
in thyself makest the Deity visibly manifest, open thyself to thy servant that
so great a manifestation may be truly understood. Grant unto me now, who
entreats thee, thy good Spirit, and the efficacious word; direct my mind and
my pen that I may declare the glory of thy divinity and give expression to
the true faith concerning thee. The cause is thine, and it is by a certain
divine impulse that I am led to treat of thy glory from the Father, and the
glory of thy Spirit. I once began to treat of it, and now I am constrained to
do so again; for the time is, in truth, completed, as I shall now show to all
the pious, from the certainty of the thing itself and from the manifest signs
of the times. Thou hast taught us that a lamp must not be hidden. Woe
unto me if I do not preach the gospel. It concerns the common cause of all
Christians, to which we are all bound."

He forwarded the manuscript to a publisher in Basel,
Marrinus, who declined it in a letter, dated April 9, 1552,
because it could not be safely published in that city at
that time. He then made an arrangement with Balthasar
Arnoullet, bookseller and publisher at Vienne, and Guillaume
Gue*roult, his brother-in-law and manager of his printing
establishment, who had run away from Geneva for bad
conduct. He assured them that there were no errors in the

§ 146. "THE RESTITUTION OF CHRISTIANITY." 735

book, and that, on the contrary, it was directed against the
doctrines of Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, and other heretics.
He agreed to withhold his and their names and the name of
the place of publication from the title-page. He assumed
the whole of the expense of publication, and paid them in
advance the sum of one hundred gold dollars. No one
in France knew at that time that his real name was Serve-
tus, and that he was the author of the work, " On the Errors
of the Trinity."

The " Restitution " was secretly printed in a small house,
away from the known establishment, within three or four
months, and finished on the third of January, 1553. He
corrected the proofs himself, but there are several typograph
ical errors in it. The whole impression of one thousand
copies was made up into bales of one hundred copies each ;
five bales were sent as white paper to Pierre Martin, type
founder of Lyons, to be forwarded by sea to Genoa and
Venice ; another lot to Jacob Bestet, bookseller at Chatillon ;
and a third to Frankfort. Calvin obtained one or more
copies, probably from his friend Frellon of Lyons.1

The first part of the " Restitution " is a revised and en
larged edition of the seven books " On the Errors of the
Trinity." The seven books are condensed into five ; and
these are followed by two dialogues on the Trinity between
Michael and Peter, which take the place of the sixth and
seventh books of the older work. The other part of the
" Restitution," which covers nearly two-thirds of the volume
(pp. 287-734), is new, and embraces three books on Faith
and the Righteousness of the Kingdom of Christ (287-354),
four books on Regeneration and the Reign of Antichrist
(355-576), thirty letters to Calvin (577-664), Sixty Signs
of Antichrist (664-670), and the Apology to Melanchthon
on the Mystery of the Trinity and on Ancient Discipline

1 These facts came out at the trial of Vienne. On the few remaining
copies of the original edition of the Restitutio see above, § 136, p. 682.

736 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

(671-734). Calvin and Melanchthon are the two surviving
Reformers whom he confronts as the representatives of
orthodox Protestantism.1

§ 147. The Theological System of Servetus.

CALVIN, in his Refutatio Errorum Mich. Served, Opera, vol. VIII. 501-644,
presents the doctrines of Servetus from his writings, in thirty-eight arti
cles, the response of Servetus, the refutation of the response, and then
a full examination of his whole system. — H. TOLLIN : Das Lehrsystem
Michael Servefs genetisch dargestellt. Gutersloh, 1878, 3 vols. 8°. The
most complete exposition of the theological opinions of Servetus.
Calvin and Tollin represent two opposite extremes in the doctrinal and
personal estimate of Servetus : Calvin is wholly polemical, and sees in the
Restitutio a volume of ravings (" volumen deliriorum ") and a chaos of blas
phemies (" prodigiosum blasphemiarum chaos"); Tollin is wholly apologetical
and eulogistic, and admires it as an anticipation of reverent, Christocentric
theology ; neither of them is strictly historical.

TRECHSEL'S account (I. 119-144) is short, but impartial. — BAUR, in his
" History of the Doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation " (Tubingen,
1843, 3 vols.) devotes, with his usual critical grasp and speculative
insight, fifty pages to Servet's views on God and Christ (I. 54-103). —
DORNER, in his great " History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ "
(Berlin, 1853), discusses his Christology profoundly, but rather briefly
(II. 649-656). Both recognize the force of his arguments against the
dyophysitism of the Chalcedonian Christology, and compare his Chris
tology with that of Apollinaris.

Before we proceed to the heresy trial, we must give a
connected statement of the opinions of Servetus as expressed
in his last and most elaborate work.

To his contemporaries the Restitutio appeared to be a
confused compound of Sabellian, Samosatenic, Arian, Apolli-
narian, and Pelagian heresies, mixed with Anabaptist errors
and Neo-platonic, pantheistic speculations. The best judges
-Calvin, Saisset, Trechsel, Baur, Dorner, Harnack — find
the root of his system in pantheism. Tollin denies his pan
theism, although he admits the pantheistic coloring of some
of his expressions ; he distinguishes no less than five phases

1 Zwingli, (Ecolampadius, Capito, Luther, and Bucer had died (in this
order) before 1552.

§ 147. THE THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF SERVETUS. 737

in his theology before it came to its full maturity, and
characterizes it as an "intensive, extensive, and protensive
Panchristism, or 4 Christocentricism.' " J

Servetus was a mystic theosophist and Christopantheist.
Far from being a sceptic or rationalist, he had very strong,
positive convictions of the absolute truth of the Christian
religion. He regarded the Bible as an infallible source of
truth, and accepted the traditional canon without dispute.
So far he agreed with evangelical Protestantism ; but he
differed from it, as well as from Romanism, in principle and
aim. He claimed to stand above both parties as the restorer
of primitive Christianity, which excludes the errors and
combines the truths of the Catholic and Protestant creeds.

The evangelical Reformation, inspired by the teaching of
St. Paul and Augustin, was primarily a practical movement,
and proceeded from a deep sense of sin and grace in opposi
tion to prevailing Pelagianism, and pointed the people
directly to Christ as the sole and sufficient fountain of
pardon and peace to the troubled conscience ; but it retained
all the articles of the Apostles' Creed, and especially the
doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation. It should be
noticed, however, that Melanchthon, in the first edition of
his Loci (1521), omitted these mysteries as objects of adora
tion rather than of speculation,2 and that Calvin, in the con
troversy with Caroli, spoke lightly of the Nicene and
Athanasian terminology, which was derived from Greek
philosophy rather than from the Bible.

1 He calls it " Christocentrik," III. Preface, xiii. " Was den Servet zum
Servet machte" he says, " ist seine Lehre von Chrislo." Comp. II. 151-159.
He assumes that Servetus composed the seven books on the " Errors of the
Trinity " at different times : books I. and II. at Toulouse in 1528, while yet
a student of seventeen (!) ; books III. and IV. at Basel in 1531; the last
three books at Strassburg; and that the two Dialogues on the Trinity repre
sent the fourth, and the " Restitution " the fifth, phase of his theology.

2 In the editions after 1543 he discussed the doctrine of the Trinity and
of the person of Christ and opposed Servetus. See Baur, III. 19 sqq., and
Dorner, II. 613 sqq.

738 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Servetus, with the Bible as his guide, aimed at a more
radical revolution than the Reformers. He started with a
new doctrine of God and of Christ, and undermined the very
foundations of the Catholic creed. The three most promi
nent negative features of his system are three denials : the
denial of the orthodox dogma of the Trinity, as set forth in
the Nicene Creed; the denial of the orthodox Christology,
as determined by the (Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon ;
and the denial of infant baptism, as practised everywhere ex
cept by the Anabaptists. From these three sources he derived
all the evils and corruptions of the Church. The first two
denials were the basis of the theoretical revolution, the third
was the basis of the practical revolution which he felt himself
providentially called to effect by his anonymous book.

Those three negations in connection with what appeared
to be shocking blasphemy, though not intended as such,
made him an object of horror to all orthodox Christians of
his age, Protestants as well as Roman Catholic, and led
to his double condemnation, first at Vienne, and then at
Geneva. So far he was perfectly understood by his contem
poraries, especially by Calvin and Melanchthon. But the
positive features, which he substituted for the Nicene and
Chalcedonian orthodoxy, were not appreciated in their origi
nality, and seemed to be simply a repetition of old and long-
condemned heresies.

There were Antitrinitarians before Servetus, not only in
the ante-Nicene age, but also in the sixteenth century, espe
cially among the Anabaptists — such as Hetzer, Denck,
Campanus, Melchior Hoffmann, Reed, Martini, David Joris.1
But he gathered their sporadic ideas into a coherent original
system, and gave them a speculative foundation.2

1 For an account of their opinions see Trechsel, I. 13-55, and the great
works of Baur and Dorner, above quoted.

2 Baur (I.e., III. 54) says : " Die in den genannten Irrlehrern oder Schwarm-
geistern, wie Luther sie treffend nannte, gleich Feuerfunken ausgestreuten und bald

§ 147. THE THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF SEKVETUS. 739

1. CHRISTOLOGY.

Servetus begins the " Restitution," as well as his first book
against the Trinity, with the doctrine of Christ. He rises
from the humanity of the historical Jesus of Nazareth to
his Messiahship and Divine Sonship, and from this to his
divinity.1 This is, we may say, the view of the Synoptical
Gospels, as distinct from the usual orthodox method which,
with the Prologue of the fourth Gospel, descends from
his divinity to his humanity through the act of the incar
nation of the second person of the Trinity. In this respect
he anticipates the modern humanitarian Christology. Jesus
is, according to Servetus, begotten, not of the first person of
God, but of the essence of the one undivided and indivisible
God. He is born, according to the flesh, of the Virgin Mary
by the overshadowing cloud of the Spirit (Matt. 1 : 18, 20,
23 ; Luke 1 : 32, 35). The whole aim of the gospel is to lead
men to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God
(comp. John 20 : 31).2 But the term " Son of God " is in the
Scriptures always used of the man Jesus, and never of the
Logos.3 He is the one true and natural son of God, born
of the substance of God ; we are sons by adoption, by an act
of grace. We are made sons of God by faith (John 1:12;

da bald dort an einen entzundbaren Stoff sick ansezenden Ideen erhielten erst
in dem Spanier Michael Servet, welchen der Zug seines Geistes demselben
Kreise zufilhrte, eine festere Consistenz und Haltung. Diess ist es, was Servet
seine historische Bedeutung gibt. Er ivurde der Mittelpunct, in welchem jene
vereinzelten, noch formlosen Elemente sich zur Einheit zusammenschlossen und
durch die Energie seines Geistes sich zu einer in sich zusammenhangenden Theorie
ausbildeten."

1 " Ipse homo lesus est ostium et via, a quo et merito exordium sumam. . . .
Pronomine ad sensum demonstrante ipsum hominem, verberibus ccesum et flagellatum,
concedam hcec tria simpliciter vera esse. Primo, Me est lesus Christus. Secundo,
kicestfiliusDei. Tertio, hie est Deus." Rest. p. 5.

2 " Semper dixi, et dico, et dicarn, esse omnia scripta, ut credamus, hunc lesum
essefilium Dei." Rest. 293.

3 " N~e unus quidern dari potest in scripturis locus, in quo ponatur vox filiut
qua non accipiatur pro homine jilio." Rest. 689.

740 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Gal. 3 : 26 ; Rom. 8 : 23 ; Eph. 1 : 5). He is, moreover, truly
and veritably God. The whole essence of God is manifest
in him ; God dwells in him bodily.1

To his last breath Servetus worshipped Jesus as the Son
of the eternal God. But he did not admit him to be the
eternal Son of God except in an ideal and pantheistic sense,
in which the whole world was in the mind of God from
eternity, and comprehended in the Divine Wisdom (Sophia)
and the Divine Word (Logos).

He opposed the Chalcedonian dualism and aimed (like
Apollinaris) at an organic unity of Christ's person, but made
him a full human personality (while Apollinaris substituted
the divine Logos for the human spirit, and thus made Christ
only a half man). He charges the scholastic and orthodox
divines, whom he calls sophists and opponents of the truth,
with making two Sons of God — one invisible and eternal,
another visible and temporal. They deny, he says,, that
Jesus is truly man by teaching that he has two distinct
natures with a communication of attributes.2 Christ does
not consist of, or in, two natures. He had no previous
personal pre-existence as a second hypostasis : his personality
dates from his conception and birth. But this man Jesus
is, at the same time, consubstantial with God (o/^oouo-^o?).
As man and wife are one in the flesh of their son, so God

1 " Christus est Deus. Dicitur vere Deus, substantialiter Deus, cum in eo sit
deltas corporaliter" (p. 14). He quotes in proof Isa. 9:6; 45:3; John 20:28;
Rom. 9:5; Phil. 2:5-11.

2 " Negant, hominem esse hominem et concedunt, Deum esse asinum. . . . Ad
eundem modum concedunt fieri posse, ut Deus sit asinus, et spiritus sanctus sit rnulus,
sustentans mulum" (p. 15). The same profane and offensive comparisons
occur in his first book, and among mediasval schoolmen, who illustrated the
relations of the Trinity by the analogy of horse, ass, and mule (in mulo
equus et asinus; in spiritu pater et films}. They also raised such foolish ques
tions as, whether God might not have become an ass or a cucumber as well
as a man, and what effect the sacrament would have upon a dog or a mouse.
From reverence to profanity, as from the sublime to the ridiculous, there
is only one step.

§ 147. THE THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF SERVETUS. 741

and man are one in Christ.1 The flesh of Christ is heavenly
and born of the very substance of God.2 By the deification
of the flesh of Christ he materialized God, destroyed the
real humanity of Christ, and lost himself in the maze of a
pantheistic mysticism.

2. THEOLOGY.

The fundamental doctrine of Servetus was the absolute
unity, simplicity, and indivisibility of the Divine being, in
opposition to the tripersonality or threefold hypostasis of
orthodoxy.3 In this respect he makes common cause with
the Jews and Mohammedans, and approvingly quotes the
Koran. He violently assails Athanasius, Hilary, Augustin,
John of Damascus, Peter the Lombard, and other champions
of the dogma of the Trinity.4 But he claims the ante-Nicene
Fathers, especially Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Irenseus,
and Tertullian, for his view. He calls all Trinitarians "tri-
theists" and "atheists."5 They have not one absolute God,

1 " Deus et homo unum sunt in Christo, quo vir et uxor unum sunt in una Jilii
carne. . . . Magnum est mysterium, quod caro ilia Jit Deo homusios [Aomousz'os],
in unam hypostasim ei connexa. Ita Deus coaluit cum humana natura, ut ilium
extolleret filium sibi hominem generando. . . . Deus et homo unum in ipso sunt."
Rest. 269.

2 " Caro ipsa Christi est ccclestis de substantia Dei genita" Rest. 74 ; comp.
48, 50, 72, 77.

3 Tollin (Thomas Aquinas, der Lehrer Sercet's, in Hilgenf eld's "Zeitschrift
fur wissenschaftliche Theologie," 1892) tries to show that Servetus only
followed out consistently the view of Thomas Aquinas, who proved the sim
plicity of the divine essence from reason, but the Trinity only from the faith
of the Church.

4 He calls Athanasius and Augustin worshippers of the beast and of
images (" Athanasium imaginum cultorem cum charactere bestice," p. 702 ; comp.
p. 398). He probably confounded the first Council of Nicsea (325), where
Athanasius was present, with the second Council of Nicaea (787), which sanc
tioned the worship of images. For this historical blunder Calvin takes
Servetus, who set himself up as "temporum omnium censor," severely to task
(Opera, VTTI. 591 sq.).

5 " Veri ergo hi sunt tritoitce [for tritheitaz], et veri sunt athei, qui Deum unum
non habent, nisi tripartitum et aggregativum." Rest. 30 ; comp. 34.

742 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

but a three-parted, collective, composite God — that is, an
unthinkable, impossible God, which is no God at all. They
worship three idols of the demons, — a three-headed monster,
like the Cerberus of the Greek mythology.1 One of their
gods is unbegotten, the second is begotten, the third pro
ceeding. One died, the other two did not die. Why is not
the Spirit begotten, and the Son proceeding? By distin
guishing the Trinity in the abstract from the three persons
separately considered, they have even four gods. The Tal
mud and the Koran, he thinks, are right in opposing such
nonsense and blasphemy.

He examines in detail the various patristic and scholastic
proof texts for the Trinity, as Gen. 18 : 2 ; Ex. 3 : 6 ; Ps. 2 : 7 ;
110:1; Isa. 7:14; John 1 : 1 ; 3:13; 8:58; 10:18; 14:10;
Col. 1 : 15 ; 2:9; 1 Pet. 3 : 19 ; Heb. 1 : 2.

Yet, after all, he taught himself a sort of trinity, but substi
tutes the terms "dispositions," "dispensations," "economies,"
for hypostases and persons. In other words, he believed, like
Sabellius, in a trinity of revelation or manifestation, but not
in a trinity of essence or substance. He even avowed, during
the trial at Geneva, a trinity of persons and the eternal per
sonality of Christ ; but he understood the term " person " in
the original sense of a mask used by players on the stage,
not in the orthodox sense of a distinct hypostasis or real
personality that had its own proper life in the Divine essence
from eternity, and was manifested in time in the man Jesus.2

1 Rest. 59, 119, etc. On these expressions, which shocked the pious feel
ings of all Christendom, see above, § 141, p. 719.

2 In his last reply to Calvin (Opera, VIII. 536), he tells him: " Mentiris.
Trinitatem ego voco, et doceo, verissimam trinitatem. . . . Reale discrimen tollo,
non personale. . . . Realem in Deo distinctionem ego repudio." Calvin, in his
Institutes (I. ch. XIII. § 22) gives the following account of the trinity of
Servetus : " The word Trinity was so odious and even detestable to Servetus,
that he asserted all Trinitarians, as he called them, to be atheists. I omit
his impertinent and scurrilous language, but this was the substance of his
speculations : That it is representing God as consisting of three parts, when
three persons are said to subsist in his essence, and that this triad is merely

§ 147. THE THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF SERVETUS. 743

Servetus distinguished — with Plato, Philo, the NeoPlato
nists, and several of the Greek Fathers — between an ideal,
invisible, uncreated, eternal world and the real, visible, created,
temporal world. In God, he says, are from eternity the ideas
or forms of all things : these are called " Wisdom " or " Logos,"
uthe Word" (John 1:1). He identifies this ideal world
with >k the Book of God," wherein are recorded all things that
happen (Deut. 32 : 32 ; Ps. 139 : 16 ; Rev. 5 : 1), and with the
living creatures and four whirling wheels full of eyes, in
the vision of Ezekiel (1:5; 10:12). The eyes of God are
living fountains in which are reflected all things, great and
small, even the hairs of our head (Matt. 10 : 30), but partic
ularly the elect, whose names are recorded in a special book.

The Word or Wisdom of God, he says, was the seed out
of which Christ was born, and the birth of Christ is the
model of all births.1 The Word may be called also the soul
of Christ, which comprehends the ideas of all things. In
Christ Avas the life, and the life was the light of the world
(John 1 : 4 sqq.). He goes here into speculations about the
nature of light and of the heavenly bodies, and ventilates his
Hebrew learning. He distinguishes three heavens — the two
material heavens of water and air, spoken of by Moses in

imaginary, being repugnant to the divine unity. At the same time he main
tained the persons to be certain external ideas, which have no real subsistence
in the divine essence, but give us a figurative representation of God under
this or the other form ; and, that in the beginning there was no distinction in
God, because the Word was once the same as the Spirit; but that after
Christ appeared God of God, there emanated from him another God, even
the Spirit. Though he sometimes glosses over his impertinencies with alle
gories, as when he says that the eternal Word of God was the Spirit of
Christ with God, and the reflection of his image, and that the Spirit was
a shadow of the Deity; yet he afterwards destroys the deity of both, assert
ing that according to the mode of dispensation there is a part of God in both
the Son and the Spirit ; just as the same Spirit substantially diffused in us,
and even on wood and stones, is a portion of the Deity."

1 " Verbum ipsum Dei quod erat semen generations Christi. . . . Ipsa Christi
generatio sit aJiorum generationum omnium specimen et prototypus. . . . Vere fuit
in Deo substantiate semen Christ), et in eo rerum omnium seminales rationes, et
exemplares formce." Rest. p. 140.

744 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

the account of creation,1 and a third, spiritual heaven of fire,
the heaven of heavens, to which Paul was elevated (2 Cor.
12 : 2), in which God and Christ dwell, and which gives
splendor to the angels. Christ has revealed the true heaven
to us, which was unknown to the Jews.

All things are one in God, in whom they consist.2 There
is one fundamental ground or principle and head of all
things, and this is Jesus Christ our Lord.3

In the fifth book, Servetus discusses the doctrine of the
Holy Spirit. He identifies him with the Word, from which
he differs only in the form of existence. God is, figuratively
speaking, the Father of the Spirit, as he is the Father of
Wisdom and the Word. The Spirit is not a third metaphysi
cal being, but the Spirit of God himself. To receive the
Holy Spirit means to receive the anointing of God. The
indwelling of the Spirit in us is the indwelling of God
(1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:22). He who
lies to the Holy Spirit lies to God (Acts 5:4). The Spirit
is a modus, a form of divine existence. He is also called the
Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of the Son (Gal. 4:6; Rom.
8:9; 1 Pet. 1:11). The human spirit is a spark of the
Divine Spirit, an image of the Wisdom of God, created, yet
similar. God breathes his Spirit into man in his birth, and
again in regeneration.

In connection with this subject, Servetus goes into an
investigation of the vital spirits in man, and gives a minute
description of the lesser circulation of the blood, which, as
we have seen, he first discovered.4 He studied theology

S?} the dual. "Duos ccelos ad literam accipimus aerium et aqueum,"
p. 157. He regards the Hebrew word as a contraction of Dtt? and D'Q, and
equivalent to " waters " (p. 155) ; while it is derived from flfctP, to be high.

2 " Omnia sunt unum in Deo, in quo uno consistunt." Rest. 161.

3 " Unicum est principium, unica verbi lux, lux omniformis, et caput omnium,
lesus Christus dominus noster, principium creaturarum Dei." Rest. 162.

4 Rest. 169 : " Ut vero totam animce et spiritus rationem habeas, lector, divinam
kic philosophiam adjungam, guam facile intelligis, si in anatome fueris exercitatus,"
etc. See above, § 143, p. 724.

§ 147. THE THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF SERVETUS. 745

as a physician and surgeon, and studied medicine as a
theologian.

He discusses also the procession of the Spirit, which he
regards not as a metaphysical and eternal process, but as
a historical manifestation, identical with the mission. Herein
he differs from both the Greek and the Latin theories, but
unjustly charges the Greeks (who distinguish the procession
from the Father alone, and the mission from the Father and
the Son) with error in denying the Filioque. The Spirit,
he says, proceeds from the Father and the Son, and he pro
ceeds from the Father through the Son, who is the proper
fountain of the Spirit. But he dates this procession from
the day of Pentecost. In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit
was unknown, which he proves from John 7 : 39 and Acts
19 : 2 (but contrary to such passages as Ps. 51 : 13 ; 1 Sam.
10 : 6 ; 16 : 13 ; Isa. 11 : 2 ; 61 : 1 ; 1 Pet. 1 : 11). The spirit
in the Old Testament was only a spirit of servitude and fear,
not of adoption and love (Rom. 8 : 15 ; Gal. 4:6). Christ
calls us friends and brethren (John 15 : 15 ; 20 : 17). The
Jews knew only a sanctification of the flesh and external
things, not of the spirit. The anointing we receive from
Christ is the anointing of the Spirit (2 Cor. 1 : 21 ; 1 John
2:20, 27). The Holy Spirit becomes ours in regeneration.
We are deified or made partakers of the divine nature by
Christ.

3. CHRISTOPANTHEISM.

The premises and conclusions of the speculations of
Servetus are pantheistic. He adopts the conception of God
as the all-embracing substance. "All is one and one is
all, because all things are one in God, and God is the sub
stance of all things."1 uAs the Word of God is essentially
man, so the Spirit of God is essentially the spirit of man.

1 " Ultimo ex prcemissis comprobatur vetus Ufa sententia, ornnia esse um/w,
quia omnia sunt unum in Deo, in quo uno consistunt." Rest. 161.

746 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

By the power of the resurrection all the primitive elements
of the body and spirit have been renewed, glorified, . and
immortalized, and all these are communicated to us by
Christ in baptism and the Lord's Supper. The Holy Spirit
is the breath from the mouth of Christ (John 20 : 22). As
God breathes into man the soul with the air, so Christ
breathes into his disciples the Holy Spirit with the air. . . .
The deity in the stone is stone, in gold it is gold, in the wood
it is wood, according to the proper ideas of things. In a
more excellent way the deity in man is man, in the spirit
it is spirit." l " God dwells in the Spirit, and God is Spirit.
God dwells in the fire, and God is fire ; God dwells in the
light, and God is light ; God dwells in the mind, and he is
the mind itself." In one of his letters to Calvin he says :
"Containing the essence of the universe in himself, God is
everywhere, and in everything, and in such wise that he
shows himself to us as fire, as a flower, as a stone." God
is always in the process of becoming.2 Evil as well as good
is comprised in his essence. He quotes Isa. 45 : 7 : "I form
the light, and create darkness ; I make peace, and create
evil ; I am the LORD, that doeth all these things." The evil
differs from the good only in the direction.

When Calvin charged him with pantheism, Servetus
restated his view in these words : " God is in all things
by essence, presence, and power, and himself sustains all
things."3 Calvin admitted this, but denied the inference
that the substantial Deity is in all creatures, and, as the
latter confessed before the judges, even in the pavement on
which they stand, and in the devils.4 In his last reply to

1 " Deltas in lapide est lapis, in auro est aurum, in ligno lignum, secundum pro-
prias ideas. Excellentiore iterum modo, deitas in homine est homo, in spiritu est
spiritus : sicut adjectio hominis in Deo est Deus, et adjectio spiritus hominis in eo
est spiritus sanctus." Rest. 182.

2 " Semper est Deus in fieri." 3 Calr. Opera, VIII. 518, art. XXXIV.
4 Ibid. 550 : " Sed hinc non sequitur in omnibus creaturis substantialem esse

deitatem. Multo minus, quod ipse coram judicibus confessus est, pavimentum, quod

§ 147. THE THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF SERVETUS. 747

Calvin he tells him : " With Simon Magus you shut up God
in a corner ; I say, that he is all in all things ; all beings are
sustained in God." *

He frequently refers with approval to Plato and the Neo-
Platonists (Plotin, Jamblichus, Proclus, Porphyry).2

But his views differ from the ordinary pantheism. He
substitutes for a cosmopantheism a Ohristopantheism. Instead
of saying, The world is the great God, he says, Christ is the
great God.3 By Christ, however, he means only the ideal
Christ ; for he denied the eternity of the real Christ.

4. ANTHROPOLOGY AND SOTERIOLOGY.*

Servetus was called a Pelagian by Calvin. This is true
only with some qualifications. He denied absolute predesti
nation and the slavery of the human will, as taught first by
all the Reformers. He admitted the fall of Adam in conse
quence of the temptation by the devil, and he admitted also
hereditary sin (which Pelagius denied), but not hereditary
guilt. Hereditary sin is only a disease for which the child
is not responsible. (This was also the view of Zwingli.)

pedibus calcamus, deitatis esse particeps, et in diabolis omnia deorum esse plena."
In his Institutes (1. I. eh. 13, § 22), Calvin calls the promiscuous confusion of
the Son of God, and the Spirit with all the creatures, " the most execrable "
(omnium maxime execranduni) of the opinions of Servetus.

1 " Cum Simone Mago tu Deum in angulo recludis : ego eum dico esse omnia in
omnibus. Entia omnia dico in Deo sustineri." In his abusive notes on Calvin's
articles, written in prison. Opera, VIII. 548.

2 He also quotes for the same purpose Philo, Plutarch, Parmenides,
Hermes Trismegistus, Zoroaster, and the Jewish rabbis, Aben-Ezra and
Moses Egyptius.

3 " Mundum Zoroaster et Trismegistus dixerunt, esse magnum Deum. Aros
Christum dicimus esse magnum Deum, mundi dominum, et omnipotentem. . . .
lesus Christus, factor mundi, fuit et est in Deo substantialiter, verius quam mundus,
et per ipsum mundus secundario in Deo consistit." Hest. 213. " Unicum est
principium, unica verbi lux, lux omniformis, et caput omnium, lesus Christus
dominus noster, principium creaturarum Dei." P. 162.

4 See here the book De Regeneration stiperna, et de regno Antichristi, in the
Restit., pp. 355 sqq.

748 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

There is no guilt without knowledge of good and evil.1
Actual transgression is not possible before the time of age
and responsibility, that is, about the twentieth year.2 He
infers this from such passages as Ex. 30 : 14 ; 38 : 26 ; Num.
14 : 29 ; 32 : 11 ; Deut. 1 : 39.

The serpent has entered human flesh and taken pos
session of it. There is a thorn in the flesh, a law of the
members antagonistic to the law of God; but this does
not condemn infants, nor is it taken away in baptism (as
the Catholics hold), for it dwells even in saints, and the
conflict between the spirit and the serpent goes on through
life.3 But Christ offers his help to all, even to infants and
their angels.4

In the fallen state man has still a free-will, reason, and
conscience, which connect him with the divine grace. Man
is still the image of God. Hence the punishment of murder,
which is an attack upon the divine majesty in man (Gen.
9 : 6). Every man is enlightened by the Logos (John 1 : 17).
We are of divine origin (Acts 17:29). The doctrine of»the
slavery of the human will is a great fallacy (magnafallacia),
and turns divine grace into a pure machine. It makes men
idle, and neglect prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. God is free

1 " Nullum est penitus nee in coelesti, nee in terrestri justitia, crimen, sine scientia
boni et mail : quanquam sine ea sint nunc infantium animce, sub tenebras in infernum
deductce." Rest. 387.

2 " Circa vicesimum annum incipit vera peccatorum remissio, sicut tune incipi-
unt vera, et actualia secundce mortis peccata." . . . 363. " Peccatum mortale non
committitur ante vicesimum annum, sicut nee crimen corporali justitia capitale."
363 sq.

3 Rest. 366 : " Quarnvis autem universce carni intrusus nunc sit serpens, et
originalem habeat etiam in came infantum nidum : hoc tamen nee infantes illos
damnat, nee tollitur per baptismum, cum sanctis etiam insit. Nee abjiciuntur
carnis sordes in baptismo, nee tollitur lex membrorum, nee angelus Satance. Per-
pctuo in nobis ipsis duos habemus pugnantes principes, Deum in spiritu et serpentem
in carne." He calls original sin " serpentis occupatio, inhabitatio et potestas, ab
ipso Adam ducens originem."

4 Rest. 369 : " Adventus Christi omnia innovavit, et omnibus opem tulit, etiam
parvulis, et eorum angelis. Coelestia, terrestria, et infernalia, adventum Christi
senserunt, et per eum sunt immutata."

§ 147. THE THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF SERVETUS. 749

himself and gives freedom to every man, and his grace works
freely in man. It is our impiety which turns the gift of
freedom into slavery.1 The Reformers blaspheme God by
their doctrine of total depravity and their depreciation
of good works. All true philosophers and theologians teach
that divinity is implanted in man, and that the soul is of the
same essence with God.2

As to predestination, there is, strictly speaking, no before
nor after in God, as he is not subject to time. But he is
just and merciful to all his creatures, especially to the little
flock of the elect.3 He condemns no one who does not
condemn himself.

Servetus rejected also the doctrine of forensic justifica
tion by faith alone, as injurious to sanctification. He held
that man is justified by faith and good works, and appealed
to the second chapter of James and the obedience of
Abraham. On this point he sympathized more with the
Roman theory. Justification is not a declaratory act of im
putation, but an efficacious act by which man is changed
and made righteous. Love is greater than faith and knowl
edge, because God is love. It embraces all good works
which clothe, preserve, and strengthen faith and increase the
reward of future glory. He who loves is better than he
who believes.4

1 Rest. 568 : " Impietas nostra facit arbitrium ex liber o servum."

2 634 sq. : " Philosophi veri, ac etiam theologi affirmant, esse menti hominis
insitam divinitatem essegue aniniam Deo 6fj.oovffi.ov, consubstantialem."

3 Rest. 321 : " Concludendum est igitur, veram Dei in omnes suas creaturas
esse justitiam et misericordiam : at in pusillum gregem suum, solum sibi peculiariter
prcedestinatum, insignem gratice sublimitatem." Melanchthon wrote to Camera-
rius that Servetus " de justifications manifests delirat," but Tollin (III. 194)
maintains that he supplements the one-sided forensic view of the Reformers.
Comp. also Henry, III. 267-272.

* See the chapter De Charitate, quid fides efficiat, quid charitas, et opera,
pp. 342 sqq., and the letters to Calvin, where he gives ten reasons for the
utility of good works, and the letter to Poupin, where he charges the Church
of Geneva that it had a gospel without good works.

750 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
5. THE SACRAMENTS.1

Servetus admitted only two sacraments, therein agreeing
with the Protestants, but held original views on both.

(a) As to the sacrament of BAPTISM, he taught, with the
Catholic Church, baptismal regeneration, but rejected, with
the Anabaptists, infant baptism.

Baptism is a saving ordinance by which we receive the
remission of sins, are made Christians, and enter the kingdom
of heaven as priests and kings, through the power of the
Holy Spirit who sanctifies the water.2 It is the death of the
old man and the birth of the new man. By baptism we put
on Christ and live a new life in him.3

But baptism must be preceded by the preaching of the
gospel, the illumination of the Spirit, and repentance, which,
according to the preaching of John the Baptist and of Christ,
is the necessary condition of entering the kingdom of God.
Therefore, Servetus infers, no one is a fit subject for baptism
before he has reached manhood. By the law of Moses priests
were not anointed before the thirtieth year (Num. 4:3).
Joseph was thirty years old when he was raised from the
prison to the throne (Gen. 41:46). According to the rab
binical tradition Adam was born or created in his thirtieth
year. Christ was baptized in the Jordan when he was thirty
years (Luke 3 : 21-23), and that is the model of all true
Christian baptism.4 He was circumcised in infancy, but the
carnal circumcision is the type of the spiritual circumcision

1 De Circumcisione vera, cum reliquis Christi et Antichristi mysteriis, in
Rest. 411 sqq., and De Baptismi efficacia, 483 sqq.

2 " Baptismo vere adest spiritus. . . . Per operationem spiritus habet baptismus
earn efficaciam, ut vere dicamus, baptismum nos salvare, ad Tit. 3 et I. Pet. 3.
Per solam enim Jidem sine baptismo non complentur omnia salutis Christi mysteria.
Baptismus nos salvat et lavat, sicut panis ccence corpore Christi nos cibat, interno
mysterio." Rest. 497.

3 Rest. 484 sq.

4 "Mysterium magnum est. Triginta annorum Christus baptismum accepit,
exemplum nobis dans, ac nos ita docens, ante earn cetatem non esse quern satis aptum
ad mysteria reqni ccelorum " (p. 412).

§ 147. THE THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF SEKVETUS. 751

of the heart, not of water baptism.1 Circumcision was
adapted to real infants who have not yet committed actual
transgression; baptism is intended for spiritual infants —
that is, for responsible persons who have a childlike spirit
and begin a new life.

(b) Servetus rejected INFANT BAPTISM as irreconcilable
with these views, and as absurd. He called it a doctrine of
the devil, an invention of popery, and a total subversion
of Christianity.2 He saw in it the second root of all the
corruptions of the Church, as the dogma of the Trinity was
the first root.

By his passionate opposition to infant baptism he gave as
much offence to Catholics and Protestants as by his opposi
tion to the dogma of the Trinity. But while on this point
he went further than the most fanatical Anabaptists, he did
not belong to their society, and rejected the revolutionary
opinions concerning obedience to government, and holding
civil and military offices.

Children are unfit to perform the office of priests which
is given to us in baptism. They have no faith, they cannot
repent, and cannot enter into a covenant. Moreover, they
do not need the bath of regeneration for the remission of
sins, as they have not yet committed actual transgression.

But children are not lost if they die without baptism.
Adam's sin is remitted to all by the merits of Christ. They
are excluded from the Church on earth ; they must die and
go to Sheol ; but Christ will raise them up on the resurrec
tion day and save them in heaven. The Scripture does not

1 " Circumcisio ilia carnalis fuit typus secundce circumcisionis spiritualis, quce
per Christum Jit, Roma. 2. et Colossen. 2." Best. 411.

2 " Pcedobaptismum esse dico detestandam abominationem, spiritus sancti
extinctionem, ecclesice Dei desolationem, totius professionis Christiana; confusionem,
innovationis, per Christum facto;, abolitionem, ac totius ejus regni conculcationem"
Rest. 576. Tollin (III. 136) is certainly mistaken when he asserts that
Servet's view of infant baptism was an exotic plant, foreign to his system.
It is inseparable from it, and one of his fundamental doctrines.

752 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

condemn the Ismaelites or the Ninevites or other barbarians.
Christ gives his blessing to unbaptized children. How could
the most merciful Lord, who bore the sins of a guilty world,
condemn those who have not committed an impiety ? l

Serve tus agreed with Zwingli, the Anabaptists, and the
Second Scotch Confession, in rejecting the cruel Roman
dogma, which excludes all unbaptized infants, even of Chris
tian parents, from the kingdom of heaven.

(c) In the doctrine of the LORD'S SUPPER, Servetus differs
from the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, and the Zwinglian
theories, and approaches, strange to say, the doctrine of his
great antagonist, Calvin.2 Baptism and the Lord's Supper
represent the birth and the nourishment of the new man.
By the former we receive the spirit of Christ ; by the latter
we receive the body of Christ, but in a spiritual and mystical
manner. Baptism kindles and strengthens faith ; the eucha-
rist strengthens love and unites us more and more to Christ.
By neglecting this ordinance the spiritual man famishes and
dies away. The heavenly man needs heavenly food, which
nourishes him to life eternal (John 6 : 53) ,3

1 " Parvulis, non baptizatis, data est a Christo benedictio. Clementissimus ille
et misericors dominus, qui impiorum peccata gratis sustulit, quomodo eos, qui impie-
tatem non commiserunt, tarn rigide damnaret?" P. 357. A noble and truly
Christian sentiment, which puts to shame his orthodox opponents. Calvin,
however, did not make water baptism a necessary condition of salvation, and
left the way open for the doctrine of universal infant salvation by sovereign
election.

2 De Ccena Domini, Rest. 502 sqq. Tollin (III. 136): "In keiner Lehre
Ser vet's zeigt sich so sehr als in der Abendmahlslehre sein vermittelnder Stand-
punkt. Tritt er dock wieder als Schiedsrichter auf zwischen dem magisch-mate-
rialistischen Katholicismus und dem qudkerischen /Spiritismus, zwischen Realismus
tind Idealismus, zwischen lutherischer Mystik und zwingli'scher Rationalistik."
He thinks that Servetus anticipated the eucharistic doctrine of Bucer and
Calvin; but Bucer laid it down in the Tetrapolitan Confession in 1530,
before he knew Servetus, and Calvin in his tract De Ccena in 1540.

3 " Baptismus et ccena Domini sunt vita et fomentum ipsius Jidei : sunt vita,
fomentum, et nutrimentum interni hominis, per Jidem ex Deo geniti. Per prcedica-
tionem evangelii plantatur fides, quod nee sine operatione spirit us fieri potest. . . .
Per ccenam Domini, qua} baptismum consequitur, nutriturt adolescit et increment*

§ 147. THE THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF SERVETUS. 753

Servetus distinguishes three false theories on the Lord's
Supper, and calls their advocates transubstantiatores (Roman
ists), impanatores (Lutherans), and tropistce (Zwinglians).1

Against the first two theories, which agree in teaching
a carnal presence and manducation of Christ's body and
blood by all communicants, he urges that spiritual food
cannot be received by the mouth and stomach, but only by
the spiritual organs of faith and love. He refers, like
Zwingli, to the passage in John 6 : 63, as the key for under
standing the words of institution and the mysterious discourse
on eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ.

He is most severe against the papal doctrine of transub-
stantiation or transelementation, because it turns bread into
no-bread, and would make us believe that the body of Christ
is eaten even by wild beasts, dogs, and mice. He calls this
dogma a Satanic monstrosity and an invention of demons.2

To the Tropists he concedes that bread and wine are
symbols, but he objects to the idea of the absence of Christ
in heaven. They are symbols of a really present, not of an
absent Christ.3 He is the living head and vitally connected
with all his members. A head cut off from the body would
be a monster. To deny the real presence of Christ is to
destroy his reign.4 He came to us to abide with us forever.

vitce suscipit, ille in baptismo genitus novus homo. Magis et magis tune in dies in
nobis Christus formatur, et nos magis et magis in unum Christi corpus cum aliis
membris czdificamur per charitatem. . . . Charitatis symbolum est ccena. . . . Ita
se habet ccena ad charitatem, sicut baptismus ad fidem. Ccena igitur et charitate
neglectis, recedit a nobis Christus, arescit Jides, evanescit spiritus, fame contabescit
et moritur homo Christianus." Rest. 501 sq.

1 Transubstantiationists, Consubstantiationists, and Tropists. Tollin in
vents three corresponding German terms : Umsubstanzler, Einbroter, Figiirler.

2 He says in this connection (p. 610) : " Papistica omnia dogmata esse doc-
trinas dcemoniorum et meras illusiones, 2 Thess. 2 et 1 Tim. 4."

8 " Non enim absentis rei sunt hcec sf/mbola, ut in umbris legis, sed est visibile
signum rei invisibilis, et externum symbolum rei internee." Rest. 507 sq.

4 "An non monstrum erit, Christum vocari caput, si suis membris nonjungiturf
Res mortua est corpus totum, si ab eo caput separes. Pernitiosus admodum est
error, et ipsissima regni Christi destructio, negare prcesentiam ejus in nobis."
Rest. 508.

754 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

He withdrew only his visible presence till the day of judg
ment, but promised to be with us invisibly, but none the less
really, to the end of the world.1

6. THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST, AND THE REIGN OF ANTICHRIST^

We have already noticed the apocalyptic fancies of
Servetus. He could not find the kingdom of God or the
kingdom of heaven, so often spoken of in the Gospels (while
Christ speaks only twice of the " Church "), in any visible
church organization of his day. The true Church flourished
in the first three centuries, but then fled into the wilderness,
pursued by the dragon; there she has a place prepared by
God, and will remain " a thousand two hundred and three
score prophetic days " or years (Rev. 12 : 6) — that is, from
325 till 1585.

The reign of Antichrist, with its corruptions and abomina
tions, began with three contemporaneous events : the first
(Ecumenical Council of Nicsea (325), which split the one
Godhead into three idols ; the union of Church and State
under Constantine, when the king became a monk ; and the
establishment of the papacy under Sylvester, when the bishop
became a king.3 From the same period he dates the general
practice of infant baptism with its destructive consequences.
Since that time the true Christians were everywhere perse
cuted and not allowed to assemble. They were scattered as
sheep in the wilderness.

Servetus fully agreed with the Reformers in opposition to

1 " Non dixit, non ero vobiscum; sed, nan videbitis me, et ego vobiscum sum."
Rest. 509.

2 De fide et justitia regni Christi. Rest. 287 sqq. Signa sexaginta Regni
Christi et Antichristi et revelatio eius jam mine prcesens, 664-670. Comp. above,
§ 146.

3 " Quamvis post Christum mox ccepit Antichristi mysterium : vere tamen emi-
cuit et stabilitum est regnum tempore Sylvestri et Constantini. Quo tempore est
mox cecumenico concilia a nobis ereptus filius Dei, fugata ecclesia, et abominationes
omnes legibus decretce. Hinc transierunt tempus et tempora et dimidium temporis,
anni mille ducenti sexaginta." Rest. 666.

§ 147. THE THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF SERVETUS. 755

the papacy as an antichristian power, but went much further,
and had no better opinion of the Protestant churches. He
called the Roman Church "the most beastly of beasts and
the most impudent of harlots." 1

He finds no less than sixty signs or marks of the reign of
Antichrist in the eschatological discourses of Christ, in Daniel
(chs. 7 and 12), in Paul (2 Thess. 2 : 3, 4 ; 1 Tim. 4 : 1), and
especially in the Apocalypse (chs. 13-18).

But this reign is now drawing to a close. The battle of
Michael with Antichrist has already begun in heaven and
on earth, and the author of the " Restitution " has sounded
the trumpet of war, which will end in the victory of Christ
and the true Church. Servetus might have lived to see the
millennium (in 1585), but he expected to fall in the battle,
and to share in the first resurrection.

He concludes his eschatological chapter on the reign of
Antichrist with these words : " Whosoever truly believes
that the pope is Antichrist, will also truly believe that the
papistical trinity, psedobaptism, and the other sacraments of
popery are doctrines of the daemons. O Christ Jesus, thou
Son of God, most merciful deliverer, who so often didst
deliver thy people from distresses, deliver us poor sinners from
this Babylonian captivity of Antichrist, from his hypocrisy,
his tyranny, and his idolatry. Amen." 2

7. ESCHATOLOGY.

Servetus was charged by Calvin and the Council of Geneva
with denying the immortality of the soul. This was a
heresy punishable by death. Etienne Dolet was executed

1 Rest. 462 sq. : " 0 bestiam bestiarum sceleratissimam, meretricum impuden-
tissimam. . . . Papa est Deus, in papatu est trinitas, draconis bestice et pseudo-
prophets. Trinitatem papisticam faciunt tres realiter distincti spiritus, qui loanni
dicuntur tres immundi spiritus ranarum, multis rationibus. Quia sunt de abyssi
aquis immundis, sicut ranee," etc. Comp. his exposition of prophetic passages,
pp. 393 sqq. and 666 sqq.

2 " Libera nos miseros ab hac Babylonica Antichristi captivitate, ab hypocrisi
ejus, tyrannide, et idololatria. Amen." Rest. 670.

756 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

on the place Maubert at Paris, Aug.' 2, 1546, for this denial.1
But Servetus denied the charge. He taught that the soul
was mortal, that it deserved to die on account of sin, but
that Christ communicates to it new life by grace.2 Christ
has brought immortality to light (2 Tim. 1 : 10 ; 1 Pet. 1 : 21-
25). This seems to be the doctrine of conditional immor
tality of believers. But he held that all the souls of the
departed go to the gloomy abode of Sheol to undergo a
certain purification before judgment. This is the baptism
of blood and fire, as distinct from the baptism of water and
spirit (1 Cor. 3 : 11-15). The good and the bad are sepa
rated in death. Those who die without being regenerated
by Christ have no hope. The righteous progress in sanctifi-
cation. They pray for us (for which he gives six reasons,
and quotes Zach. 1 : 12, 13 ; Luke 15 : 10 ; 16 : 27, 28; 1 Cor.
13 : 18) ; but we ought not to pray for them, for they do not
need our prayers, and there is no Scripture precept on the
subject.3

The reign of the pope or Antichrist will be followed by
the millennial reign of Christ on earth (Rev. 20 : 4-7).
Then will take place the first resurrection.

Servetus was a chiliast, but not in the carnal Jewish sense.
He blames Melanchthon for deriding, with the papal crowd,
all those as chiliasts who believe in the glorious reign of
Christ on earth, according to the book of Revelation and the
teaching of the school of St. John.4

1 He had translated the words of Plato : 2C yap OVK etn? : " Apres la mart tu
ne seras plus rien du tout," instead of " Car tu ne seras plus," as the Sorbonne
wanted. Tollin, III. 288, mentions this fact and refers to Reg. fac. theol.
Paris. MM. 248 in the Paris state archives.

2 " Christus reparator animus nostras reddidit immortales, et vitalem earum
spiritum incorruptibilem." Best. 551. He distinguished between the soul and
the spirit, according to the Platonic trichotomy. After the death of the body,
the soul is a mere shadow.

3 Rest. 718.

4 " Quamguam tu cum vulgo papistico seniores illos omnes, et apostolicos viros, ut
chiliastas rideas." Rest. 719.

§ 148. THE TRIAL OF SERVETUS AT VIENNE. 757

The general resurrection and judgment follow after the
millennium. Men will be raised in the flower of manhood,
the thirtieth year — the year of baptismal regeneration, the
year in which Christ was baptized and entered upon his
public ministry.1 " Then wilt thou," so he addresses Philip
Melanchthon, who, next to Calvin, was his greatest enemy,
"with all thy senses, see, feel, taste, and hear God himself.
If thou dost not believe this, thou dost not believe in a
resurrection of the flesh and a bodily transformation of thy
organs." 2

After the general judgment, Christ will surrender his
mediatorial reign with its glories to the Father, and God
will be all in all (Acts 3 : 21 ; 1 Cor. 15 : 24-28).

§ 148. The Trial and Condemnation of Servetus at Vienne.

See D'ARTIGNY in Nbuveaux Memoires d'histoire, etc. ; MOSHEIM'S Neue
Nachrichten, etc.; and CALVIN'S Opera, VIII. 833-856.

Shortly after the publication of the "Restitution," the
fact was made known to the Roman Catholic authorities at
Lyons through Guillaume Trie, a native of Lyons and a
convert from Romanism, residing at that time in Geneva.
He corresponded with a cousin at Lyons, by the name of
Arneys, a zealous Romanist, who tried to reconvert him to
his religion, and reproached the Church of Geneva with the
want of discipline. On the 26th of February, 1553, he wrote
to Arneys that in Geneva vice and blasphemy were pun
ished, while in France a dangerous heretic was tolerated,
who deserved to be burned by Roman Catholics as well as
Protestants, who blasphemed the holy Trinity, called Jesus
Christ an idol, and the baptism of infants a diabolic inven
tion. He gave his name as Michael Serve tus, who called

1 "Dies baptismi assimilatur diei resurrectionis." Rest. 413.

2 " Deum ipsum tu beatus corporeis his omnibus tuis sensibus videbis, tangest
gustabis, olfacies et audies. Si hoc non credis, non credis carnis resurrectionem et
corporeum tuorum orqanorum futuram glorijicationem." Rest. 718.

758 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

himself at present Villeneuve, a practising physician at
Yienne. In confirmation he sent the first leaf of the " Res
titution," and named the printer Balthasar Arnoullet at
Vienne.1

This letter, and two others of Trie which followed, look
very much as if they had been dictated or inspired by Calvin.
Serve tus held him responsible.2 But Calvin denied the
imputation as a calumny.3 At the same time he speaks
rather lightly of it, and thinks that it would not have been
dishonorable to denounce so dangerous a heretic to the proper
authorities. He also frankly acknowledges that he caused his
arrest at Geneva.4 He could see no material difference in
principle between doing the same thing, indirectly, at Vienne
and, directly, at Geneva. He simply denies that he was the
originator of the papal trial and of the letter of Trie ; but he
does not deny that he furnished material for evidence, which
was quite well known and publicly made use of in the trial
where Servetus's letters to Calvin are mentioned as pieces jus
tificative*. There can be no doubt that Trie, who describes

1 " C'est un Espagnol Portugallois nomm€ Michael Servetus de son propre nom,
metis il se nomme Villeneuve a present, faisant le Medecin. II a demeure' quelque
temps a Lyon, maintenant il se tient a Vienne, ou le livre dont je parle a e'te" imprime"
par un quidam qui a la dress€ imprimerie, nomme Balthazar d Arnoullet. Et a/in
que vous ne pensiez que je en parle a credit, je vous envoye la premiere feuille pour
enseigne." The specimens seemed to have been the title-page, the index, and,
perhaps, a few pages, which did not prove the authorship of Villeneuve, nor
his identity with Servetus. The three letters of Trie are published in French
by D'Artigny (p. 79 sq.) and Mosheim (p. 90), and in Calvin's Opera, VIII.
835-838, 840-844.

2 This was also the opinion of Bolsec and the pseudonymous Martinus
Bellius, and is repeated by the Abbe d'Artigny, Wallace, Willis, and v. d.
Linde, who charge Calvin with having deliberately and dishonorably betrayed
Servetus. But this cannot be proven, and would involve a downright false
hood, of which Calvin was incapable.

3 He calls it a "futilis calumnia," and thinks it preposterous to suppose
that he was in friendly correspondence with the popish authorities. " Unde
mihi tanta cum papce satellitio repente familiar itas ? unde etiam tanta gratia?"
Refut. error. Mich. Serv., in Opera, VIII. 479.

4 " Nee sane dissimulo, mea opera consilioque jure in carcerem fuisse conjee-
tinn." Ibid. VIII. 461.

§ 148. THE TRIAL OF SERVETUS AT VIENNE. 759

himself as a comparatively unlettered man, got his infor
mation about Servetus and his book from Calvin, or his
colleagues, either directly from conversation, or from pulpit
denunciations. We must acquit Calvin of direct agency, but
we cannot free him of indirect agency in this denunciation.1

Calvin's indirect agency in the first, and his direct agency
in the second arrest of Servetus admit of no proper justifica
tion, and are due to an excess of zeal for orthodoxy.

Arneys conveyed this information to the Roman Catholic
authorities. The matter was brought to the knowledge of
Cardinal Tournon, at that time archbishop of Lyons, a cruel
persecutor of the Protestants, and Matthias Ory, a regularly
trained inquisitor of the Roman see for the kingdom of
France. They at once instituted judicial proceedings.

Villeneuve was summoned before the civil court of Vienne
on the 16th of March. He kept the judges waiting for two
hours (during which he probably destroyed all suspicious
papers), and appeared without any show of embarrassment.
He afnrmed that he had lived long at Vienne, in frequent
company with ecclesiastics, without incurring any suspicion

1 Trechsel thinks that it can by no means be proven that Calvin caused
the letter of Trie, but that he probably gave occasion to it by incidental and
unintentional expressions. " Wenn auch Calvin," he says, I. 144, "wahrschein-
lich durch qelegentliche und unabsichtliche Aeusserungen zur Entdeckung Servets
Anlass qab, so ist es doch durchaus unerwiesen, dass er Trie's Brief provocirt oder
gar dictirt habe." Dyer, who is not friendly to Calvin, gives as the result of
his examination of the case, this judgment (p. 314): "The Abbe d'Artigny
goes further than the evidence warrants, in positively asserting that Trie's
letter was written at Calvin's dictation, and in calling it Calvin's letter
in the name of Trie. It is just possible that Trie may have written the
letter without Calvin's knowledge, and the latter is therefore entitled to
the benefit of the doubt. He cannot absolutely be proved to have taken the
first step in delivering Servetus into the fangs of the Roman Catholic inquisi
tion ; but what we shall now have to relate will show that he at least aided
and abetted it." Principal Cunningham (The Reformers, pp. 323 sqq.) goes
into an elaborate argument to vindicate Calvin from the charge of complicity,
in opposition to Principal Tulloch, who denounces the conduct of Calvin,
if it could be proven (he leaves it undecided), as "one of the blackest pictures
of treachery." An evident rhetorical exaggeration.

760 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

for heresy, and had always avoided all cause of offence. His
apartments were searched, but nothing was found to incrimi
nate him. On the following day the printing establishment
of Arnoullet was searched with no better result. On the
return of Arnoullet from a journey he was summoned before
the tribunal, but he professed ignorance.

Inquisitor Ory now requested Arneys to secure additional
proof from his cousin at Geneva. Trie forwarded on the
26th of March several autograph letters of Servetus which,
he said, he had great difficulty in obtaining from Calvin
(who ought to have absolutely refused). He added some
pages from Calvin's Institutes with the marginal objections
of Servetus to infant baptism in his handwriting. Ory, not
yet satisfied, despatched a special messenger to Geneva to
secure the manuscript of the Restitutio, and proof that
Villeneuve was Servetus and Arnoullet his printer. Trie
answered at once, on the last of March, that the manuscript
of the Restitutio had been at Lausanne for a couple of years
(with Viret), that Servetus had been banished from the
churches of Germany (Basel and Strassburg) twenty-four
years ago, and that Arnoullet and Guesroult were his printers,
as he knew from a good source which he would not mention
(perhaps Frellon of Lyons).

The cardinal of Lyons and the archbishop of Vienne, after
consultation with Inquisitor Ory and other ecclesiastics, now
gave orders on the 4th of April for the arrest of Villeneuve
and Arnoullet. They were confined in separate rooms in the
Palais Delphinal. Villeneuve was allowed to keep a servant,
and to see his friends. Ory was sent forth, hastened to
Vienne, and arrived there the next morning.

After dinner Villeneuve, having been sworn on the Holy
Gospels, was interrogated as to his name, age, and course
of life. In his answers he told some palpable falsehoods to
mislead the judges, and to prevent his being identified with
Servetus, the heretic. He omitted to mention his residence

§ 148. THE TRIAL OF SERVETUS AT VIENNE. 761

in Toulouse, where he had been known under his real name,
as the books of the University would show. He denied that
he had written any other books than those on medicine and
geography, although he had corrected many. On being
shown some notes he had written on Calvin's Institutes about
infant baptism, he acknowledged at last the authorship of
the notes, but added that he must have written them incon
siderately for the purpose of discussion, and he submitted
himself entirely to his holy Mother, the Church, from whose
teachings he had never wished to differ.

At the second examination, on the sixth day of April, he
was shown some of his epistles to Calvin. He declared,
with tears in his eyes, that those letters were written when
he was in Germany some twenty-five years ago, when there
was printed in that country a book by a certain Servetus,
a Spaniard, but from what part of Spain he did not know !
At Paris he had heard Mons. Calvin spoken of as a learned
man, and had entered into correspondence with him from
curiosity, but begged him to keep his letters as confidential
and as brotherly corrections.1 Calvin suspected, he con
tinued, that I was Servetus, to which I replied, I was not
Servetus, but would continue to personate Servetus in order
to continue the discussion. Finally we fell out, got angry,
abused each other, and broke off the correspondence about
ten years ago. He protested before God and his judges that
he had no intention to dogmatize or to teach anything
against the Church or the Christian religion. He told simi
lar lies when other letters were laid before him.

Servetus now resolved to escape, perhaps with the aid of
some friends, after he had secured through his servant a debt
of three hundred crowns from the Grand Prior of the monas
tery of St. Pierre. On the 7th of April, at four o'clock in

1 " Sub sigillo secreti et comme fraternelles [sic] corrections.'" He himself,
however, published in the Eestitutio, as we have seen, thirty letters of his to
Calvin without Calvin's permission.

762 THE REFORMATION IX FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

the morning, he dressed himself, threw a night-gown over
his clothes, and put a velvet cap upon his head, and, pretend
ing a call of nature, he secured from the unsuspecting jailer
the key to the garden. He leaped from the roof of the
outhouse and made his escape through the court and
over the bridge across the Rhone. He carried with him his
golden chain around his neck, valued at twenty crowns,
six gold rings on his fingers, and plenty of money in his
pockets.

Two hours elapsed before his escape became known. An
alarm was given, the gates were closed, and the neighboring
houses searched ; but all in vain.

Nevertheless the prosecution went on. Sufficient evidence
was found that the " Restitution " had been printed in
Vienne ; extracts were made from it to prove the heresies
contained therein. The civil court, without waiting for the
judgment of the spiritual tribunal (which was not given
until six months afterwards), sentenced Servetus on the 17th
of June, for heretical doctrines, for violation of the royal
ordinances, and for escape from the royal prison, to pay a
fine of one thousand livres tournois to the Dauphin, to be
carried in a cart, together with his books, on a market-day
through the principal streets to the place of execution, and
to be burnt alive by a slow fire.1

On the same day he was burnt in effigy, together with the
five bales of his book, which had been consigned to Merrin
at Lyons and brought back to Vienne.

The goods and chattels of the fugitive were seized and
confiscated. The property he had acquired from his medical
practice and literary labors amounted to four thousand
crowns. The king bestowed them 011 the son of Monsieur

1 " Estre brusl€ tout vif a petit-feu, tellement que son corps soft mis en cendre"
The whole sentence of the tribunal is printed in Calvin's Opera, VIII. 784-787.
It was communicated to the Council of Geneva, as a ground for demanding
the prisoner.

§ 149. SERVETTJS FLEES TO GENEVA. 763

de Montgiron, lieutenant-general of Dauphin^ and presiding
judge of the court.1

Arnoullet was discharged on proving that he had been
deceived by Gue*roult, who seems to have escaped by flight.
He took care that the remaining copies of the heretical book
in France should be destroyed. Stephens, the famous pub
lisher, who had come to Geneva in 1552, sacrificed the copies
in his hands. Those that had been sent to Frankfort were
burnt at the instance of Calvin.

On the 23d of December, two months after the execution
of Servetus, the ecclesiastical tribunal of Vienne pronounced
a sentence of condemnation on him.2

§ 149. /Servetus flees to Geneva and is arrested.

RILLIET : Relation du proces, etc., quoted above, p. 684. (Tweedie's transla
tion in his Calvin and Servetus, pp. 62 sqq.) Opera, VIII. 725-856.

Escaped from one danger of death, Servetus, as by " a fatal
madness," as Calvin says, rushed into another.3 Did he
aspire to the glory of martyrdom in Geneva, as he seemed to
intimate in his letter to Poupin ? But he had just escaped
martyrdom in France. Or did he wish to have a personal
interview with Calvin, which he had sought in Paris in 1534,
and again in Vienne in 1546? But after publishing his
abusive letters and suspecting him for denunciation, he could
hardly entertain such a wish. Or did he merely intend to
pass through the place on his way to Italy? But in this
case he need not tarry there for weeks, and he might have
taken another route through Savoy, or by the sea. Or did

1 See Montgiron's letter to the Council of Geneva in Opera, VIII. 791, and
in Rilliet-Tweedie, p. 156.

2 Calvin's Opera, VIII. 851-856 (copied from d'Artigny, II. 123, and
Mosheim, Neue Nachrichten, etc., p. 100 sq.). Villanovanus is therein con
demned as " maximus hcereticus" and his scripta as " erronea, nefanda, impia,
sacrilega, et plusquam ha>retica."

3 " Nescio quid dicam, nisi fatali vesania fuisse correptum ut se prcecipitem
jaceret." Calvin. See Henry, III. 151.

764 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

he hope to dethrone "the pope of Geneva" with the aid of
his enemies, who had just then the political control of the
Republic ? :

He lingered in France for about three months. He in
tended, first, as he declared at the trial, to proceed to Spain,
but finding the journey unsafe, he turned his eye to Naples,
where he hoped to make a living as physician among the
numerous Spanish residents. This he could easily have
done under a new name.

He took his way through Geneva. He arrived there after
the middle of July, 1553, alone and on foot, having left his
horse on the French border. He took up his lodging in the
Auberge de la Rose, a small inn on the banks of the lake.
His dress and manner, his gold chain and gold rings, excited
attention. On being asked by his host whether he was
married, he answered, like a light-hearted cavalier, that
women enough could be found without marrying.2 This
frivolous reply provoked suspicion of immorality, and was
made use of at the trial, but unjustly, for a fracture
disabled him for marriage and prevented libertinage.3

He remained about a month, and then intended to leave
for Zurich. He asked his host to hire a boat to convey him
over the lake some distance eastward.

But before his departure he attended church, on Sunday,
the 13th of August. He was recognized and arrested by an
officer of the police in the name of the Council.4

1 Willis (p. 284) thinks that the enemies of Calvin detained him with the
view to make political capital out of him. He infers this from the fact that
the windows of his room were nailed up. As if he could not have passed out
through the door! Moreover, it was not the windows of his room in the
tavern, as Willis says, hut the windows of the prison that were nailed up,
as Servetus stated at the trial, to prove that he had no intercourse with out
siders. See Rilliet-Tweedic, p. 154.

2 " On troune bien assc: '!r fennncs sans se marrier" Comp. Trechsel, I. 306.
8 He declared, Aug. %J:>, that he was impotent on account of a rupture.

Opera, VIII. 769.

4 The following is an extract from the Registers of the Company of Pastors
sub. Aug. 13 (in Opera, VIII. 725) : " M. Servetus having been recognized

S 149. SEKVETUS FLEES TO GENEVA. 765
o

Calvin was responsible for this arrest, as he frankly and
repeatedly acknowledged.1 It was a fatal mistake. Serve tus
was a stranger and had committed no offence in Geneva.
Calvin ought to have allowed him quietly to proceed on his
intended journey. Why then did he act otherwise ? Cer
tainly not from personal malice, nor other selfish reasons ;
for he only increased the difficulty of his critical situation,
and ran the risk of his defeat by the Libertine party then in
power. It was an error of judgment. He was under the
false impression that Servetus had just come from Venice,
the headquarters of . Italian humanists and sceptics, to propa
gate his errors in Geneva, and he considered it his duty to
make so dangerous a man harmless, by bringing him either
to conviction and recantation, or to deserved punishment.
He was determined to stand or fall with the principle of
purity of doctrine and discipline. Rilliet justifies the arrest
as a necessary measure of self-defence. " Under pain of
abdication," he says, " Calvin must do everything rather than
suffer by his side in Geneva a man whom he considered the
greatest enemy of the Reformation ; and the critical position
in which he saw it in the bosom of the Republic, was one

by some brethren (par quelques freres}, it was found good to cause him to be
imprisoned, that he might no longer infect the world with his blasphemies
and heresies ; for he is known to be wholly incorrigible and desperate (du
tout incorrigible et desespere'}."

1 In the Befutatio, Opera, VIII. 461, 725, and in letters to Farel (Aug. 20)
and Sulzer (Sept. 8, 1553). " Servetus," he wrote to Sulzer in Basel, during
the trial, " escaped from prison some way or other, and wandered in Italy for
nearly four months. At length, in an evil hour, he came to this place, when,
at my instigation, one of the Syndics ordered him to be conducted to prison ;
for I do not disguise it that I considered it my duty to put a check, so far as
I could, upon this most obstinate and ungovernable man, that his contagion
might not spread farther. We see with what wantonness impiety is making
progress everywhere, so that new errors are ever and anon breaking forth;
we see how very inactive those are whom God has armed with the sword for
the vindication of the glory of his name." The reference to a four months'
wandering in Italy (per Italiam erravit fere quatuor menses, that is, from April
7th to the end of July) is an error. Servetus at the trial denied that he had
been in Italy at that time or at Venice at any time.

766 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

motive more to remove, if it was possible, the new element
of dissolution which the free sojourn of Servetus would have
created. ... To tolerate Servetus with impunity at Geneva
would have been for Calvin to exile himself. . . . He had
no alternative. The man whom a Calvinist accusation had
caused to be arrested, tried, and condemned to the flames in
France, could not find an asylum in the city from which
that accusation had issued." l

§ 150. State of Political Parties at Geneva in 1553.

Calvin's position in Geneva at that time was very critical.
For in the year 1553 he was in the fever-heat of the struggle
for church discipline with the Patriots and Libertines, who
had gained a temporary ascendency in the government.
Amy Perrin, the leader of the patriotic party, was then
captain-general and chief syndic, and several of his kinsmen
and friends were members of the Little Council of Twenty-
five.2 During the trial of Servetus the Council sustained
Philibert Berthelier against the act of excommunication by
the Consistory, and took church discipline into its own
hands. The foreign refugees were made harmless by being
deprived of their arms. Violence was threatened to the
Reformer. He was everywhere saluted as " a heretic," and
insulted on the streets. Beza says : " In the year 1553, the
wickedness of the seditions, hastening to a close, was so
turbulent that both Church and State were brought into
extreme danger. . . . Everything seemed to be in a state
of preparation for accomplishing the plans of the seditious,
since all was subject to their power." And Calvin, at the
close of that year, wrote to a friend : " For four years the
factions have done all to lead by degrees to the overthrow
of this Church, already very weak. . . . Behold two years

1 Translated by Tweedie, p. 87.

2 Fernet de Fosses, Gaspard Favre, Claude Vandel, Pierre Vandel, and
Baptiste Sept. See Opera, VIII. 737, note 6.

§ 150. STATE OF POLITICAL PARTIES AT GENEVA. 767

of our life have passed as if we lived among the avowed
enemies of the gospel."

The hostility of the Council to Calvin and his discipline
continued even after the execution of Servetus for nearly
two more years. He asked the assistance of Bullinger and
the Church of Zurich to come to his aid again in this
struggle.1 He wrote to Ambrose Blaurer, Feb. 6, 1554 :
" These last few years evil disposed persons have not ceased
on every occasion to create for us new subjects of vexation.
At length in their endeavors to render null our excommuni
cation, there is no excess of folly they have left unattempted.
Everywhere the contest was long maintained with much
violence, because in the senate and among the people the
passions of the contending parties had been so much inflamed
that there was some risk of a tumult." 2

We do not know whether Servetus was aware of this state
of things. But he could not have come at a time more
favorable to him and more unfavorable to Calvin. Among
the Libertines and Patriots, who hated the yoke of Calvin
even more than the yoke of the pope, Servetus found natural
supporters who, in turn, would gladly use him for political
> purposes. This fact emboldened him to take such a defiant
attitude in the trial and to overwhelm Calvin with abuse.

The final responsibility of the condemnation, therefore,
rests with the Council of Geneva, which would probably
have acted otherwise, if it had not been strongly influenced
by the judgment of the Swiss Churches and the government
of Bern. Calvin conducted the theological part of the
examination of the trial, but had no direct influence upon
the result. His theory was that the Church may convict
and denounce the heretic theologically, but that his condem
nation and punishment is the exclusive function of the State,

1 Letters of Nov. 26 and Dec. 30, 1553, in Bonnet-Constable, II. 422-430.

2 Ibid. III. 17. Comp. also his letter of Oct. 15, 1554, quoted in § 108,
p. 496, and his letter to John Wolf of Zurich, Dec. 26, 1554.

768 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

and that it is one of its most sacred duties to punish attacks
made on the Divine majesty.

"From the time Servetus was convicted of his heresy,"
says Calvin, " I have not uttered a word about his punish
ment, as all honest men will bear witness ; and I challenge
even the malignant to deny it if they can." 1 One thing only
he did : he expressed the wish for a mitigation of his punish
ment.2 And this humane sentiment is almost the only good
thing that can be recorded to his honor in this painful trial.

§ 151. The First Act of the Trial at Geneva.

Servetus was confined near the Church of St. Pierre, in
the ancient residence of the bishops of Geneva, which had
been turned into a prison. His personal property consisted
of ninety-seven crowns, a chain of gold weighing about
twenty crowns, and six gold rings (a large turquoise, a white
sapphire, a diamond, a ruby, a large emerald of Peru, and
a signet ring of coralline). These valuables were surren
dered to Pierre Tissot, and after the process given to the
hospital. The prisoner was allowed to have paper and ink,
and such books as could be procured at Geneva or Lyons
at his own expense. Calvin lent him Ignatius, Polycarp,
Tertullian, and Irenseus. But he was denied the benefit of
counsel, according to the ordinances of 1543. This is con
trary to the law of equity and is one of the worst features
of the trial. He was not subjected to the usual torture.

The laws of Geneva demanded that the accuser should
become a prisoner with the accused, in order that in the
event of the charge proving false, the former might undergo

1 Opera, VIII. 461 : " Ex quo convictus est, me nullum de pcena verbum fecisse,
non solum boni omnes viri mihi testes erunt serf malis etiam concedo ut proferant
si quid habent" Servetus complained of hard treatment in prison, but for
this the Council and the jailer alone were responsible.

2 In his letter to Farel, Aug. 20, 1553 : " Spero capitate saltern judicium
fore ; poence vero atrocitatein remitti cupio."

§ 151. THE FIRST ACT OF THE TRIAL. 769

punishment in the place of the accused. The person em
ployed for this purpose was Nicolas de la Fontaine, a French
man, a theological student, and Calvin's private secretary.
The accused as well as the accuser were foreigners. Another
law obliged the Little Council to examine every prisoner
within twenty-four hours after his arrest. The advocate or
"Speaker" of Nicolas de la Fontaine in the trial was
Germain Colladon, likewise a Frenchman and an able lawyer,
who had fled for his religion, and aided Calvin in framing
a new constitution for Geneva.

The trial began on the 15th of August and continued, with
interruptions, for more than two months. It was conducted
in French and took place in the Bishop's Palace, according
to the forms prescribed by law, in the presence of the Little
Council, the herald of the city, the Lord-Lieutenant, and
several citizens, who had a right to sit in criminal processes,
but did not take part in the judgment. Among these was
Berthelier, the bitter enemy of Calvin.

Servetus answered the preliminary questions as to his name,
age, and previous history more truthfully than he had done
before the Catholic tribunal, and incidentally accused Calvin
of having caused the prosecution at Vienne. It is not owing
to Calvin, he said, that he was not burnt alive there.

The deed of accusation, as lodged by Nicholas de la
Fontaine, consisted of thirty-eight articles which were drawn
up by Calvin (as he himself informs us), and were fortified
by references to the books of Servetus, which were produced
in evidence, especially the " Restitution of Christianity,"
both the manuscript copy, which Servetus had sent to Calvin
in advance, and a printed copy.1

The principal charges were, that he had published heretical
opinions and blasphemies concerning the Trinity, the person

1 The articles are given in full by Killiet, and in Opera, VIII. 727-731.
Calvin mentions forty articles in a letter to Farel (Aug. 20), but they are
reduced to thirty-eight by the notation.

770 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

of Christ, and infant baptism. He gave evasive or orthodox-
sounding answers. He confessed to believe in the trinity of
persons, but understood the word " person " in a different
sense from that used by modern writers, and appealed to the
first teachers of the Church and the disciples of the apostles.1
He denied at first that he had called the Trinity three devils
and Cerberus ; 2 but he had done so repeatedly and confessed
it afterwards. He professed to believe that Jesus Christ was
the Son of God according to his divinity and humanity ; that
the flesh of Christ came from heaven and of the substance of
God; but as to the matter it came from the Virgin Mary.
He denied the view imputed to him that the soul was mortal.
He admitted that he had called infant baptism " a diabolical
invention and infernal falsehood destructive of Christianity."
This was a dangerous admission ; for the Anabaptists were
suspected of seditious and revolutionary opinions.

He was also charged with having, uin the person of M.
Calvin, defamed the doctrines of the gospel and of the
Church of Geneva." To this he replied that in what he had
formerly written against Calvin, in his own defence, he
had not intended to injure him, but to show him his errors
and faults, which he was ready to prove by Scripture and
good reasons before a full congregation.

This was a bold challenge. Calvin was willing to accept
it, but the Council declined, fearing to lose the control of the
affair by submitting it to the tribunal of public opinion.
The friends of Servetus would have run the risk of seeing

1 " Respond quil croit en lessence divine en troys personnes et quil na point dog
matise en celle sorte. Vray est quil prent le nom de personne aultrement que les
modernes ne le prennent et quil le prent comment les premiers docteurs de leglise
et disciples des apotres lont prys." Opera, VIII. 738. I retain the ancient
spelling.

3 " Interrogtf sil entend que la Trinite'soit troys diables et soit troys [UM] Cerberus,
respond que non, et quil ne la point diet en ceste sorte et quil ne le veult point mainte-
nir." Comp. with this the passage in his letter to Poupin which was after
wards produced in evidence and acknowledged by him: "Pro uno Deo habetis
tricipitem Cerberum."

. § 151. THE FIRST ACT OF THE TRIAL. 771

him defeated in public debate. That charge, however, which
seemed to betray personal ill-feeling of Calvin, was after
wards very properly omitted.

On the following day, the 16th of August, Berthelier, then
smarting under the sentence of excommunication by the
Consistory, openly came to the defence of Servetus, and had
a stormy encounter with Colladon, which is omitted in the
official record, but indicated by blanks and the abrupt termi
nation: "Here they proceeded no further, but adjourned till
to-morrow at mid-day."

On Thursday, the 17th of August, Calvin himself appeared
before the Council as the real accuser, and again on the 21st
of August.1 He also conferred with his antagonist in writing.
Servetus was not a match for Calvin either in learning or
argument ; but he showed great skill and some force.

He contemptuously repelled the frivolous charge that, in
his Ptolemy, he had contradicted the authority of Moses, by
describing Palestine as an unfruitful country (which it was
then, and is now). He wiped his mouth and said, "Let us
go on; there is nothing wrong there."

The charge of having, in his notes on the Latin Bible,
explained the servant of God in the fifty-third chapter of
Isaiah, as meaning King Cyrus, instead of the Saviour, he
disposed of by distinguishing two senses of prophecy — the
literal and historical sense which referred to Cyrus, and
the mystical and principal sense which referred to Christ.
He quoted Nicolaus de Lyra; but Calvin showed him the
error, and asserts that he audaciously quoted books which
he had never examined.

As to his calling the Trinity " a Cerberus " and " a dream
of Augustin," and the Trinitarians "atheists," he said that
he did not mean the true Trinity, which he believed himself,

1 On this and the subsequent encounter we have also an account from
Calvin in his "Defence," which is more minute than the official report.
Opera, VIII. 743 sqq.

772 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

but the false trinity of his opponents; and that the oldest
teachers before the Council of Nicsea did not teach that
trinity, and did not use the word. Among them he quoted
Ignatius, Polycarp, Clement of Rome, Irenseus, Tertullian,
and Clement of Alexandria. Calvin refuted his assertion by
quotations from Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Origen. On
this occasion he charges him, unjustly, with total ignorance
of Greek, because he was embarrassed by a Greek quotation
from Justin Martyr, and called for a Latin version.1

In discussing the relation of the divine substance to that
of the creatures, Servetus declared that " all creatures are of
the substance of God, and that God is in all things." Calvin
asked him: " How, unhappy man, if any one strike the pave
ment with his foot and say that he tramples on thy God,
wouldst thou not be horrified at having the Majesty of
heaven subjected to such indignity ? " To this Servet
replied : " I have no doubt that this bench, and this buffet,
and all you can show me, are of the substance of God."
When it was objected that in his view God must be substan
tially even in the devil, he burst out into a laugh, and
rejoined : " Can you doubt this ? I hold this for a general
maxim, that all things are part and parcel of God, and that
the nature of things is his substantial Spirit." 2

The result of this first act of the trial was unfavorable to
the prisoner, but not decisive.

Calvin used the freedom of the pulpit to counteract the
efforts of the Libertine party in favor of Servetus.

§ 152. The Second Act of the Trial at Geneva.

The original prosecution being discharged, the case was
handed over to the attorney-general, Claude Rigot, in com-

1 "He could no more read Greek," says Calvin, in the Itefiitatio, "than
a boy learning his A B C." Opera, VIII. 498.

2 Opera, VIII. 496: "ex traduce Dei orta (or, une partie et portion de Dieu)
esse omnia, et rerum naturam esse substantial em Dei spiriturn."

§ 152. THE SECOND ACT OF THE TRIAL. 773

pliance with the criminal ordinance of 1543. Thus the
second act of the trial began. The prisoner was examined
again, and a new indictment of thirty articles was prepared,
which bore less on the actual heresies of the accused than on
their dangerous practical tendency and his persistency in
spreading them.1

The Council wrote also to the judges of Vienne to procure
particulars of the charges which had been brought against
him there.

Servetus defended himself before the Council on the 23d
of August, with ingenuity and apparent frankness against
the new charges of quarrelsomeness and immorality. As to
the latter, he pleaded his physical infirmity which protected
him against the temptation of licentiousness. He had always
studied the Scripture and tried to lead a Christian life. He
did not think that his book would disturb the peace of
Christendom, but would promote the truth. He denied that
he had come to Geneva for any sinister purpose ; he merely
wished to pass through on his way to Zurich and Naples.

At the same time he prepared a written petition to the
Council, which was received on the 24th of August. He
demanded his release from the criminal charge for several
reasons, which ought to have had considerable weight : that it
was unknown in the Christian Church before the time of
Constantine to try cases of heresy before a civil tribunal ;
that he had not offended against the laws either in Geneva
or elsewhere ; that he was not seditious nor turbulent ; that
his books treated of abstruse questions, and were addressed
to the learned ; that he had not spoken of these subjects to
anybody but OEcolampadius, Bucer, and Capito ; that he had
ever refuted the Anabaptists, who rebelled against the magis
trates and wished to have all things in common. In case he
was not released, he demanded the aid of an advocate

1 Articles du procureur-ge'neral in Opera, VIII. 703-766.

774 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

acquainted with the laws and customs of the country. Cer
tainly a very reasonable request.1

The attorney-general prepared a second indictment in
refutation of the arguments of Servetus, who had studied
law at Toulouse. He showed that the first Christian empe
rors claimed for themselves the cognizance and trial of
heresies, and that their laws and constitutions condemned
antitrinitarian heretics and blasphemers to death. He
charged him with falsehood in declaring that he had written
against the Anabaptists, and that he had not communicated
his doctrine to any person during the last thirty years. The
counsel asked for was refused because it was forbidden by
the criminal statutes (1543), and because there was "not
one jot of apparent innocence which requires an attorney."
The very thing to be proved !

A new examination followed which elicited some points of
interest. Servetus stated his belief that the Reformation
would progress much further than Luther and Calvin in
tended, and that new things were always first rejected, but
afterwards received. To the absurd charge of making use
of the Koran, he replied that he had quoted it for the
glory of Christ, that the Koran abounds in what is good,
and that even in a wicked book one may find some good
things.

On the last day of August the Little Council received
answer from Vienne. The commandant of the royal palace
in that city arrived in Geneva, communicated to them a copy
of the sentence of death pronounced against Villeneuve, and
begged them to send him back to France that the sentence
might be executed on the living man as it had been already
executed on his effigy and books. The Council refused to
surrender Servetus, in accordance with analogous cases, but
promised to do full justice. The prisoner himself, who could
see only a burning funeral pile for him in Vienne, preferred

1 Opera, VIII. 797.

§ 152. THE SECOND ACT OF THE TRIAL. 775

to be tried in Geneva, where he had some chance of acquittal
or lighter punishment. He incidentally justified his habit of
attending mass at Vienne by the example of Paul, who went
to the temple, like the Jews ; yet he confessed that in doing
so he had sinned through fear of death.1

The communication from Vienne had probably the influ
ence of stimulating the zeal of the Council for orthodoxy.
They wished not to be behind the Roman Church in that
respect. But the issue was still uncertain.

The Council again confronted Servetus with Calvin on
the first day of September. On the same day it granted,
in spite of the strong protest of Calvin, permission to
Philibert Berthelier to approach the communion table. It
thus annulled the act of excommunication by the Con
sistory, and arrogated to itself the power of ecclesiastical
discipline.

A few hours afterwards the investigation was resumed in
the prison. Perrin and Berthelier were present as judges,
and came to the aid of Servetus in the oral debate with
Calvin, but, it seems, without success ; for they resorted to
a written discussion in which Servetus could better defend
himself, and in which Calvin might complicate his already
critical position. They wished, moreover, to refer the affair
to the Churches of Switzerland which, in the case of Bolsec,
had shown themselves much more tolerant than Calvin.
Servetus demanded such reference. Calvin did not like it,
but did not openly oppose it.

The Council, without entering on the discussion, decided
that Calvin should extract in Latin, from the books of Serve
tus, the objectionable articles, word for word', contained
therein ; that Servetus should write his answers and vindica
tions, also in Latin; that Calvin should in his turn furnish
his replies ; and "that these documents be forwarded to the

1 Opera, VIII. 789 : " Et puys apres a confess^ quit avait pechf en cet mais
que cestoit par crainte de la inort."

776 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Swiss Churches as a basis of judgment. All this was fair
and impartial.1

On the same day Calvin extracted thirty-eight propositions
from the books of Servetus with references, but without
comments.

Then, turning with astonishing energy from one enemy to
the other, he appeared before the Little Council on the 2d
of September to protest most earnestly against their protec
tion of Berthelier, who intended to present himself on the
following day as a guest at the Lord's table, and by the
strength of the civil power to force Calvin to give him
the tokens of the body and blood of Christ. He declared
before the Council that he would rather die than act against
his conscience. The Council did not yield, but resolved
secretly to advise Berthelier to abstain from receiving the
sacrament for the present. Calvin, ignorant of this secret
advice, and resolved to conquer or to die, thundered from
the pulpit of St. Peter on the 3d of September his determina
tion to refuse, at the risk of his life, the sacred elements
to an excommunicated person. Berthelier did not dare to
approach the table. Calvin had achieved a moral victory
over the Council.2

In the mean time Servetus had, within the space of
twenty-four hours, prepared a written defence, as directed
by the Council, against the thirty-eight articles of Calvin.
It was both apologetic and boldly aggressive, clear, keen,
violent, and bitter. He contemptuously repelled Calvin's
interference in the trial, and charged him with presumption
in framing articles of faith after the fashion of the doctors
of the Sorbonne, without Scripture proof.3 He affirmed that

1 Opera, VIII. 796. The Latin text of the three documents is embodied
in Calvin's Refutatio Errorum, ibid. 501-553.

2 See above, § 109, p. 513 sq.

3 VIII. 507 : " Earn sibi jam autoritatem arrot/at Calvinus, ut instar magistro-
rum Sorbonicorum articulos scribat, et quidvis pro sua libidine damnet, nullam
penitus ex sacris \_de I'ecriture sainte^ addufens rationem."

§ 152. THE SECOND ACT OF THE TRIAL. 777

he either misunderstood him or craftily perverted his mean
ing. He quotes from Tertullian, Irenseus, and pseudo-
Clement in support of his views. He calls him a disciple
of Simon Magus, a criminal accuser, and a homicide.1 He
ridiculed the idea that such a man should call himself an
orthodox minister of the Church.

Calvin replied within two days in a document of twenty-
three folio pages, which were signed by all the fourteen
ministers of Geneva.2 He meets the patristic quotations of
Servetus with counter-quotations, with Scripture passages
and solid arguments, and charges him in conclusion with the
intention " to subvert all religion." 3

These three documents, which contained the essence of the
doctrinal discussion, were presented to the Little Council on
Tuesday the 5th of September.

On the 15th of September Servetus addressed a petition
to the Council in which he attacked Calvin as his persecutor,
complained of his miserable condition in prison and want of
the necessary clothing, and demanded an advocate and the
transfer of his trial to the Large Council of Two Hundred,
where he had reason to expect a majority in his favor.4 This
course had probably been suggested to him (as Rilliet conjec
tures) by Perrin and Berthelier through the jailer, Claude de
Geneve, who was a member of the Libertine party.

On the same day the Little Council ordered an improve
ment of the prisoner's wardrobe (which, however, was delayed
by culpable neglect), and sent him the three documents, with
permission to make a last reply to Calvin, but took no action
on his appeal to the Large Council, having no disposition to
renounce its own authority.

1 VIII. 515: " Si mom's Magi discipulus . . . accusator criminalis, et homicida."

2 Calvinus, Poupinus, Gallasius, Bernardus, Bourgoinus, Malisianus,
Calvetus, Pyrerius, Copus, Baldinus, J. a Sancto Andrea, Faber, Macarius,
Colladonus.

3 " Ut luce sance doctrince exstincta totam religionem everteret."
* Opera, VIII. 797, and Rilliet-Tvveedie, p. 182.

778 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Servetus at once prepared a reply by way of explana
tory annotations on the margin and between the lines of the
memorial of Calvin and the ministers. These annotations
are full of the coarsest abuse, and read like the production
of a madman. He calls Calvin again and again a liar,1 an
impostor, a miserable wretch (nebulo pessimus), a hypocrite,
a disciple of Simon Magus, etc. Take these specimens : " Do
you deny that you are a man-slayer ? I will prove it by your
acts. You dare not deny that you are Simon Magus. As
for me, I am firm in so good a cause, and do not fear death.
. . . You deal with sophistical arguments without Scrip
ture. . . . You do not understand what you say. You howl
like a blind man in the desert. . . . You lie, you lie, you
lie, you ignorant calumniator. . . . Madness is in you when
you persecute to death. ... I wish that all your magic
were still in the belly of your mother. ... I wish I were
free to make a catalogue of your errors. Whoever is not
a Simon Magus is considered a Pelagian by Calvin. All,
therefore, who have been in Christendom are damned by
Calvin ; even the apostles, their disciples, the ancient doctors
of the Church and all the rest. For no one ever entirely
abolished free-will except that Simon Magus. Thou liest,
thou liest, thou liest, thou liest, thou miserable wretch."

He concludes with the remark that uhis doctrine was met
merely by clamors, not by argument or any authority," and
he subscribed his name as one who had Christ for his certain
protector.2

He sent these notes to the Council on the 18th of Sep
tember. It was shown to Calvin, but he did not deem it

1 " Mentiris" occurs in almost every sentence. He naively apologizes for
writing on Calvin's own paper, because there were many little words, such as
" mentiris," which would not be otherwise understood ; and he hopes that
Calvin would not be offended, as there would have been inextricable confu
sion had he not adopted this method.

2 "Michael Servetus subscribit solus hie quidem, sed qui Christum habet pro-
tectorem certissimum" From the MS., in Opera, VIII. 553, note.

§ 153. CONSULTATION OF THE SWISS CHURCHES. 779

expedient to make a reply. Silence in this case was better
than speech.

The debate, therefore, between the two divines was closed,
and the trial became an affair of Protestant Switzerland,
which should act as a jury.

§ 153. Consultation of the Swiss Churches. The Defiant
Attitude of Servetus.

On the 19th of September the Little Council, in accord
ance with a resolution adopted on the 4th, referred the case
of Servetus to the magistrates and pastors of the Reformed
Churches of Bern, Zurich, Schaffhausen, and Basel for their
judgment.

Two days afterwards Jaquemoz Jernoz, as the official
messenger, was despatched on his mission with a circular
letter and the documents, — namely the theological debate
between Calvin and Servetus, — a copy of the " Restitution
of Christianity," and the works of Tertullian and Irenseus,
who were the chief patristic authorities quoted by both
parties.

On the result of this mission the case of Servetus was
made to depend. Servetus himself had expressed a wish
that this course should be adopted, hoping, it seems, to gain
a victory, or at least an escape from capital punishment. On
the 22d of August he was willing to be banished from
Geneva ; but on the 22d of September he asked the Council
to put Calvin on trial, and handed in a list of articles on
which he should be interrogated. He thus admitted the
civil jurisdiction in matters of religious opinions which he
had formerly denied, and was willing to stake his life on the
decision, provided that his antagonist should be exposed to
the same fate.1 Among the four "great and infallible"

1 " Ie demand que mon faulx accusateur soyt puni poena talionis ; et que soyt
detenu prisonier comme moi/,jusques a ce que la cause soyt definie pour mort de luy
ou de moy ou aultre poine." The petition concludes : " Ie vous demande justice,
messeigneurs, justice, justice, justice." Opera, VIII. 805.

780 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

reasons why Calvin should be condemned, he assigned the
fact that he wished to "repress the truth of Jesus Christ,
and follow the doctrines of Simon Magus, against all the
doctors that ever were in the Church." He declared in his
petition that Calvin, like a magician, ought to be extermi
nated, and his goods be confiscated and given to Servetus, in
compensation for the loss he had sustained through Calvin.
" To dislodge Calvin from his position," says Rilliet, " to
expel him from Geneva, to satisfy a just vengeance — these
were the objects toward which Servetus rushed."

But the Council took no notice of his petition.

On the 10th of October he sent another letter to the
Council, imploring them, for the love of Christ, to grant him
such justice as they would not refuse to a Turk, and com
plaining that nothing had been done for his comfort as prom
ised, but that he was more wretched than ever. The peti
tion had some effect. The Lord Syndic, Darlod, and the
Secretary of State, Claude Roset, were directed to visit his
prison and to provide some articles of dress for his relief.

On the 18th of October the messenger of the State returned
with the answers from the four foreign churches. They were
forthwith translated into French, and examined by the
magistrates. We already know the contents.1 The churches
were unanimous in condemning the theological doctrines of
Servetus, and in the testimony of respect and affection for
Calvin and his colleagues. Even Bern, which was not on
good terms with Calvin, and had two years earlier counselled
toleration in the case of Bolsec, regarded Servetus a much
more dangerous heretic and advised to remove this "pest."
Yet none of the Churches consulted expressly suggested the
death penalty. They left the mode of punishment with the
discretion of a sovereign State. Haller, the pastor of Bern,
however, wrote to Bullinger of Zurich that, if Servetus had

1 See above, pp. 708 sqq., and Calvin's Opera, VIII. 806 sq.

§ 154. CONDEMNATION OF SERVETUS. 781

fallen into the hands of Bernese justice, he would undoubt
edly have been condemned to the flames.

§ 154. Condemnation of Servetus.

On the 23d of October the Council met for a careful exam
ination of the replies of the churches, but could not come
to a decision on account of the absence of several mem
bers, especially Perrin, the Chief Syndic, who feigned sick
ness. Servetus had failed to excite any sympathy among the
people, and had injured his cause by his obstinate and defiant
conduct. The Libertines, who wished to use him as a tool
for political purposes, were discouraged and intimidated by
the counsel of Bern, to which they looked for protection
against the hated regime of Calvin.

The full session of the Council on the 26th, to which all
counsellors were summoned on the faith of their oath,
decided the fate of the unfortunate prisoner, but not without
a stormy discussion. Amy Perrin presided and made a last
effort in favor of Servetus. He at first insisted upon his
acquittal, which would have been equivalent to the expulsion
of Calvin and a permanent triumph of the party opposed to
him. Being baffled, he proposed, as another alternative, that
Servetus, in accordance with his own wishes, be transferred
to the Council of the Two Hundred. But this proposal was
also rejected. He was influenced by political passion rather
than by sympathy with heresy or love of toleration, which
had very few advocates at that time. When he perceived
that the majority of the Council was inclined to a sentence
of death, he quitted the Senate House with a few others.

The Council had no doubt of its jurisdiction in the case ;
it had to respect the unanimous judgment of the Churches,
the public horror of heresy and blasphemy, and the imperial
laws of Christendom, which were appealed to by the attorney-
general. The decision was unanimous. Even the wish of

782 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Calvin to substitute the sword for the fire was overruled,
and the papal practice of the auto-da-fe followed, though
without the solemn mockery of a religious festival.

The judges, after enumerating the crimes of Servetus,
in calling the holy Trinity a monster with three heads,
blaspheming the Son of God, denying infant-baptism as an
invention of the devil and of witchcraft, assailing the
Christian faith, and after mentioning that he had been con
demned and burned in effigy at Vienne, and had during his
residence in Geneva persisted in his vile and detestable
errors, and called all true Christians tritheists, atheists, sor
cerers, putting aside all remonstrances and corrections with
a malicious and perverse obstinacy, pronounced the fearful
sentence : —

" We condemn thee, Michael Servetus, to be bound, and led to the place
of Champel, there to be fastened to a stake and burnt alive, together with
thy book, as well the one written by thy hand as the printed one, even till
thy body be reduced to ashes ; and thus shalt thou finish thy days to furnish
an example to others who might wish to commit the like.

" And we command our Lieutenant to see that this our present sentence
be executed." l

Rilliet, who published the official report of the trial in the
interest of history, without special sympathy with Calvin,
says that the sentence of condemnation is " odious before our
consciences, but was just according to the law." Let us
thank God that those unchristian and barbarous laws are
abolished forever.

Calvin communicated to Farel on the 26th of October
a brief summary of the result, in which he says : " The mes
senger has returned from the Swiss Churches. They are
unanimous in pronouncing2 that Servetus has now renewed
those impious errors with which Satan formerly disturbed
the Church, and that he is a monster not to be borne. Those

1 Opera, VIII. 827-830. See also Rilliet, and Henry (III., Beilage, pp. 75
sqq.). The sentence was in the usual legal form, like that of Vienne.

2 " Uno consensu pronunciant omnes," etc. Opera, XIV. 657.

§ 155. EXECUTION OF SERVETUS. 783

of Basel are judicious. The Ziirichers are the most vehe
ment of all. . . . They of Schaffhausen agree. To an
appropriate letter from the Bernese is added one from the
Senate in which they stimulate ours not a little. Caesar,
the comedian [so he sarcastically called Perrin], after feign
ing illness for three days, at length went up to the assembly
in order to free that wretch [Servetus] from punishment.
Nor was he ashamed to ask that the case be referred to
the Council of the Two Hundred. However, Servetus was
without dissent condemned. He will be led forth to punish
ment to-morrow. We endeavored to alter the mode of his
death, but in vain. Why we did not succeed, I defer for
narration until I see you."

This letter reached Farel on his way to Geneva, where he
arrived on the same day, in time to hear the sentence of con
demnation. He had come at the request of Calvin, to per
form the last pastoral duties to the prisoner, which could
not so well be done by any of the pastors of Geneva.

§155. Execution of Servetus. (9^.27,1553.

FAREL, in a letter to Ambrosius Blaarer, December, 1553, preserved in the
library of St. Gall, and copied in the Thesaurus Hottingerianus of the city
library of Ziirich, gives an account of the last moments and execution
of Servetus. See HENRY, vol. III. Beilage, pp. 72-75. CALVIN, at the
beginning of his "Defence," Opera, VIII. 460, relates his own last inter
view with Servetus in prison on the day of his death.

When Servetus, on the following morning, heard of the
unexpected sentence of death, he was horror-struck and
behaved like a madman. He uttered groans, and cried aloud
in Spanish, " Mercy, mercy ! "

The venerable old Farel visited him in the prison at seven
in the morning, and remained with him till the hour of his
death. He tried to convince him of his error. Servetus
asked him to quote a single Scripture passage where Christ
was called "Son of God" before his incarnation. Farel
could not satisfy him. He brought about an interview with

784 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Calvin, of which the latter gives us an account. Servetus,
proud as he was, humbly asked his pardon. Calvin protested
that he had never pursued any personal quarrel against him.
" Sixteen years ago," he said, " I spared no pains at Paris
to gain you to our Lord. You then shunned the light. I
did not cease to exhort you by letters, but all in vain. You
have heaped upon me I know not how much fury rather
than anger. But as to the rest, I pass by what concerns
myself. Think rather of crying for mercy to God whom you
have blasphemed." This address had no more effect than
the exhortation of Farel, and Calvin left the room in obedi
ence, as he says, to St. Paul's order (Tit. 3 : 10, 11), to with
draw from a self-condemned heretic. Servetus appeared as
mild and humble as he had been bold and arrogant, but did
not change his conviction.

At eleven o'clock on the 27th of October, Servetus was
led from the prison to the gates of the City Hall, to hear the
sentence read from the balcony by the Lord Syndic Darlod.
When he heard the last words, he fell on his knees and
exclaimed : " The sword ! in mercy ! and not fire ! Or
I may lose my soul in despair." He protested that if he
had sinned, it was through ignorance. Farel raised him up
and said : " Confess thy crime, and God will have mercy
on your soul." Servetus replied : " I am not guilty ; I have
not merited death." Then he smote his breast, invoked God
for pardon, confessed Christ as his Saviour, and besought
God to pardon his accusers.1

On the short journey to the place of execution, Farel
again attempted to obtain a confession, but Servetus was
silent. He showed the courage and consistency of a martyr
in these last awful moments.

Champel is a little hill south of Geneva with a fine view

1 " Ut Deus accusatoribus esset propitius." Farel. This is certainly a Chris
tian act. Henry (III. 191) admits that Servetus in his last moments showed
some noble traits towards his enemies.

§ 155. EXECUTION OF SERVETUS. 785

on one of the loveliest paradises of nature.1 There was
prepared a funeral pile hidden in part by the autumnal leaves
of the oak trees. The Lord Lieutenant and the herald on
horseback, both arrayed in the insignia of their office, arrive
with the doomed man and the old pastor, followed by a
small procession of spectators. Farel invites Servetus to
solicit the prayers of the people and to unite his prayers
with theirs. Servetus obeys in silence. The executioner
fastens him by iron chains to the stake amidst the fagots,
puts a crown of leaves covered with sulphur on his head,
and binds his book by his side. The sight of the flaming
torch extorts from him a piercing shriek of " misericordias "
in his native tongue. The spectators fall back with a
shudder. The flames soon reach him and consume his
mortal frame in the forty-fourth year of his fitful life. In
the last moment he is heard to pray, in smoke and agony,
with a loud voice : " Jesus Christ, thou Son of the eternal
God, have mercy upon me ! " 2

This was at once a confession of his faith and of his error.
He could not be induced, says Farel, to confess that Christ
was the eternal Son of God.

The tragedy ended when the clock of St. Peter's struck
twelve. The people quietly dispersed to their homes.
Farel returned at once to Neuchatel, even without calling
on Calvin. The subject was too painful to be discussed.

1 It is now covered by a beautiful villa, gardens, and vineyards. The
pleasant road of half an hour from the city to Champel is called "the
Philosophers' Way," on which Arminius, when a student of Beza, is said to
have begun his meditations on the mysteries of predestination and free-will,
which immortalized his name. So Henry reports in his small biography of
Calvin, p. 346, and in his large work, III. 198, note 1.

2 Farel does not mention this, nor some other circumstances which are
more or less apocryphal (and omitted by Rilliet) : for instance, that the exe
cutioner did not understand his business, and piled up green oak-wood ; that
many threw dry bundles into the slow-burning fire, and that Servetus suffered
nearly half an hour. See the anonymous Historia de Morte Servcti, ascribed
to a Genevese, who was an enemy of Calvin. Henry, III. 200 sq.

786 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

The conscience and piety of that age approved of the
execution, and left little room for the emotions of compas
sion. But two hundred years afterwards a distinguished
scholar and minister of Geneva echoed the sentiments of his
fellow-citizens when he said : " Would to God that we could
extinguish this funeral pile with our tears." l Dr. Henry,
the admiring biographer of Calvin, imagines an impartial
Christian jury of the nineteenth century assembled on
Champel, which would pronounce the judgment on Calvin,
" Not guilty " ; on Servetus, " Guilty, with extenuating
circumstances." 2

The flames of Champel have consumed the intolerance of
Calvin as well as the heresy of Servetus.

§ 156. The Character of Servetus.

Servetus — theologian, philosopher, geographer, physician,
scientist, and astrologer — was one of the most remarkable
men in the history of heresy. He was of medium size, thin
and pale, like Calvin, his eyes beaming with intelligence,
and an expression of melancholy and fanaticism. Owing to
a physical rupture he was never married. He seems never
to have had any particular friends, and stood isolated and
alone.

His mental endowments and acquirements were of a high
order, and placed him far above the heretics of his age and
almost on an equality with the Reformers.3 His discoveries

1 Jean Senebier (b. at Geneva, 1742; d. 1809), Hist. litter, de Geneve (Gen.
1786, 3 vols.), I. 215: "// seroit a souhaiter que nos larm.es eussent pu e'teindre
le bucher de cet infortune'." Quoted by Henry, III. 207.

2 Leben Joh. Calvin's, III. 209 sq.

3 Mosheim compares him with Calvin in genius, yet calls his method
"a model of confusion." Stahelin (I. 428) likewise thinks that in intellectual
endowment he was equal (ebenbiirtig} to the greatest men of his great century,
even to Calvin, but that he lacked the chief qualification of a reformer —
moral character. Tollin puts him on a par with Calvin and Luther. But
such exaggeration is refuted by history. The fruits are the test of a man's
true greatness.

§ 156. THE CHARACTER OF SERVETUS. 787

have immortalized his name in the history of science. He
knew Latin, Hebrew, and Greek (though Calvin depreciates
his knowledge of Greek), as well as Spanish, French, and
Italian, arid was well read in the Bible, the early fathers, and
the schoolmen. He had an original, speculative, and acute
mind, a tenacious memory, ready wit, a fiery imagination,
ardent love of learning, and untiring industry. He antici
pated the leading doctrines of Socinianism and Unitarianism,
but in connection with mystic and pantheistic speculations,
which his contemporaries did not understand. He had much
uncommon sense, but little practical common sense. He
lacked balance and soundness. There was a streak of fanat
icism in his brain. His eccentric genius bordered closely on
the line of insanity. For

" Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide."

His style is frequently obscure, inelegant, abrupt, diffuse,
and repetitious. He accumulates arguments to an extent
that destroys their effect. He gives eight arguments to
prove that the saints in heaven pray for us ; ten arguments
to show that Melanchthon and his friends were sorcerers,
blinded by the devil ; twenty arguments against infant bap
tism ; twenty-five reasons for the necessity of faith before
baptism ; and sixty signs of the apocalyptic beast and the
reign of Antichrist.1

In thought and style he was the opposite of the clear
headed, well-balanced, methodical, logical, and thoroughly
sound Calvin, who never leaves the reader in doubt as to
his meaning.

The moral character of Servetus was free from immorality
of which his enemies at first suspected him in the common
opinion of the close connection of heresy with vice. But he
was vain, proud, defiant, quarrelsome, revengeful, irreverent

1 Restit. pp. 664, 570, 586, 664, 700, 718.

788 THE REFORMATION IX FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

in the use of language, deceitful, and mendacious. He
abused popery and the Reformers with unreasonable violence.
He conformed for years to the Catholic ritual which he
despised as idolatrous. He defended his attendance upon
mass by Paul's example in visiting the temple (Acts 21 : 26),
but afterwards confessed at Geneva that he had acted under
compulsion and sinned from fear of death. He concealed
or denied on oath facts which he had afterwards to admit.1
At Vienne he tried to lie himself out of danger, and escaped ;
in Geneva he defied his antagonist and did his best, with the
aid of the Libertines in the Council, to ruin him.

The severest charge against him is blasphemy. Bullinger
remarked to a Pole that if Satan himself should come out
of hell, he could use no more blasphemous language against
the Trinity than this Spaniard ; and Peter Martyr, who was
present, assented and said that such a living son of the devil
ought not to be tolerated anywhere. We cannot even now
read some of his sentences against the doctrine of the Trinity
without a shudder. Servetus lacked reverence and a decent
regard for the most sacred feelings and convictions of those
who differed from him. But there was a misunderstanding
on both sides. He did not mean to blaspheme the true God
in whom he believed himself, but only the three false and
imaginary gods, as he wrongly conceived them to be, while
to all orthodox Christians they were the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit of the one true, eternal, blessed Godhead.

He labored under the fanatical delusion that he was called
by Providence to reform the Church and to restore the Chris
tian religion. He deemed himself wiser than all the fathers,
schoolmen, and reformers. He supported his delusion by
a fanciful interpretation of the last and darkest book of the
Bible.

1 Tollin (Charakterbild, p. 38) defends Servetus's veracity by resolving his
contradictory statements into innocent errors of memory and comparing them
to the variations in the four Gospel narratives !

§ 157. CALVIN'S DEFENCE OF THE PENALTY. 789

Calvin and Farel saw, in his refusal to recant, only the
obstinacy of an incorrigible heretic and blasphemer. We
must recognize in it the strength of his conviction. He
forgave his enemies; he asked the pardon even of Calvin.
Why should we not forgive him ? He had a deeply religious
nature. We must honor his enthusiastic devotion to the
Scriptures and to the person of Christ. From the prayers
and ejaculations inserted in his book, and from his dying
cry for mercy, it is evident that he worshipped Jesus Christ
as his Lord and Saviour.1

§ 157. Calvin's Defence of the Death Penalty for Heretics.

The public sentiment, Catholic and Protestant, as we
have seen, approved of the traditional doctrine, that obsti
nate heretics should be made harmless by death, and con
tinued unchanged down to the close of the seventeenth
century.

But there were exceptions. As in the case of the execu
tion of the Spanish Priscillianists in the fourth century,
the genuine spirit of Christianity and humanity raised a
cry of indignation and horror through the mouths of St.
Ambrose of Milan, and St. Martin of Tours ; so there were
not a few in the sixteenth century who protested against
the burning of Servetus. Most of these — Lelio Socino,
Renato, Curio, Biandrata, Alciati, Gribaldo, Gentile, Ochino,
and Castellio — were Italian refugees and free-thinkers who
sympathized more or less with his heretical opinions. It was
especially three professors in the University of Basel —
Borrhaus (Cellarius), Curio, and Castellio — who were sus-

1 Rest. p. 356: "0 Christe Jesu, domine Deus noster, adesto, veni, vide, et
pugna pro nobis." P. 576: "0 pater omnipotens, pater misericordice, eripe nos
miseros ab his tenebris mortis, per nomen filii tui Jesu Christi domini nostri*
0 fili Dei, Jesu Christe, qui pro nobis mortuus es, ne moreremur, succurre, ne
moriamur" etc. Comp. also the prayer at the beginning of his book, quoted
above in»§ 146.

790 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

pected at Geneva of being followers of Servetus. For the
same reason some Anabaptists, like David Joris, who lived
at that time in Basel under the assumed name of John
von Bruck, took his part. Anonymous libels in prose and
verse appeared against Calvin. He was denounced as a
new pope and inquisitor, and Geneva, heretofore an asylum
of religious liberty, as a new Rome*1 A hundred Serve tuses
seemed to arise from the ashes at Champel ; but they were
all inferior men, and did not understand the speculative
views of Servetus, who had exhausted the productive powers
of antitrinitarianism.2

Not only dissenters and personal enemies, but also, as Beza
admits, some orthodox and pious people and friends of
Calvin were dissatisfied with the severity of the punishment,
and feared, not without reason, that it would justify and
encourage the Romanists in their cruel persecution of
Protestants in France and elsewhere.

Under these circumstances Calvin felt it to be his dis
agreeable duty to defend his conduct, and to refute the
errors of Servetus. He was urged by Bullinger to do it.
He completed the work in a few months and published
it in Latin and French in the beginning of 1554.3 It had an

1 The Sicilian, Camillo Ilenato wrote a long poem, De injusto Serveti incen-
dio, which is copied by Trechsel, I. 321-28, from the Simler collection in
Ziirich. Several poems came from Italian refugees in the Grisons.

2 On these later Antitrinitarians, see the preceding chapter. They were
deistic ; Servetus pantheistic. Trechsel says (I. 269) : " In Servet schien sick
die productive Kraft des Antitrinitarianismus erschopft zu haben. Von der Hd'he
der Genialitdt und specnlativer Weltbetrachtung sank er zu der Stufe des trivialen
ohnmachtigen Zweifels hinunter, und die jngendliche Frische und Fiille, die sich in
den Ideen des spaniscJten Arztes ojfcnbarte, icich einem altklugen, verstdndelnden,
halbaufgekldrten Wesen, das sich in einer Fluth von subjektiven Meinungen ohne
Halt und inner e Bedeutung zu erkennen gab. ^iicht wenig wurde der kircldichen
Parfhei und Calvin an ihrer iSpitze durch die geistige Bedeutungslosigkeit Hirer
Gegner der Kampf und Widerstand erleichtert, und dock daiterte er noch dreizehn
Jahre und endigte mit einer dhnlichen gewaltsamen Katastrophe, wie diejenige, mit
icelcher er begonnen hatte." He means the execution of Gentile at Bern, 1566.

3 Zurkinden in Bern received a copy Feb. 10, 1554; Sulzer in Basel,
Feb. 26.

§ 157. CALVIN'S DEFENCE OF THE PENALTY. 791

official character and was signed by all the fifteen ministers
of Geneva.1

Beza aided him in this controversy and undertook to
refute the pamphlet of Bellius, and did so with great ability
and eloquence.2

Calvin's work against Servetus gave complete satisfaction
to Melanchthon. It is the strongest refutation of the errors
of his opponent which his age produced, but it is not free
from bitterness against one who, at last, had humbly asked
his pardon, and who had been sent to the judgment seat of
God by a violent death. It is impossible to read without
pain the following passage : " Whoever shall now contend
that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will
knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt. This is not
laid down on human authority; it is God who speaks and
prescribes a perpetual rule for his Church. It is not in vain
that he banishes all those human affections which soften our
hearts; that he commands paternal love and all the benevo
lent feelings between brothers, relations, and friends to cease ;
in a word, that he almost deprives men of their nature in
order that nothing may hinder their holy zeal. .Why is so
implacable a severity exacted but that we may know that
God is defrauded of his honor, unless the piety that is due
to him be preferred to all human duties, and that when his

1 Defenslo orthodoxfc fidei de sacra Trinitate, contra prodigiosos errores
Michaelis Serveti Ilispani : ubi ostenditur hoereticos jure gladii coercendos esse,
et nominatim de homine hoc turn impio juste et merito sumptum Geneva fuisse sup-
plicium. Per JOHANNEM CALVINUM. Oliva Robert! Stephani (261 pages).
It is also quoted under the sub-title : Fidelis Expositio errorum Mich. Serveti
et brew's eorundem Refutatio, etc., or simply as Kefutatio Errorum M. S. The
French version is entitled : Declaration pour maintenir la vraije joy que tiennent
tons Chre'stiens de la Trinite des personnes en un seul Dieu. Par JEAN CALVIN.
Contre les erreurs de'testables de Michel Serret, Espaignol. Ou il est aussi monstre',
(jiCil est licite de punir les heretiques ; et qu'a bon droict ce meschant a este executd
par justice en la ville de Geneve (356 pages). The work is accordingly cited
under different titles — Defensio, Ecfutatio, Declaration. See the bibliographi
cal notices in Calvin's Opera, VIII. Proleg. xxix-xxxiii.

2 See succeeding section.

792 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

glory is to be asserted, humanity must be almost obliterated
from our memories ? "

Calvin's plea for the right and duty of the Christian
magistrate to punish heresy by death, stands or falls with
his theocratic theory and the binding authority of the
Mosaic code. His arguments are chiefly drawn from the
Jewish laws against idolatry and blasphemy, and from
the examples of the pious kings of Israel. But his arguments
from the New Testament are failures. He agrees with
Augustin in the interpretation of the parabolic words : *' Con
strain them to come in" (Luke 14 : 23). * But this can
only refer to moral and not to physical force, and would
imply a forcible salvation, not destruction. The same para
ble was afterwards abused by the French bishops to justify
the abominable dragoonades of Louis XIV. against the
Huguenots. Calvin quotes the passages on the duty of the
civil magistrate to use the sword against evil-doers (Rom.
13 : 4) ; the expulsion of the profane traffickers from the
temple (Matt. 21 : 12) ; the judgment on Ananias and Sap-
phira (Acts 5 : 1 sqq.) ; the striking of Ely mas with blind
ness (13: 11); and the delivery of Hymengeus and Alexander
to Satan (1 Tim. 1 : 20). He answers the objections from
the parables of the tares and of the net (Matt. 13: 30, 49),
and from the wise counsel of Gamaliel (Acts 5:34). But
he cannot get over those passages which contradict his
theory, as Christ's rebuke to John and James, for wishing to
call down fire from heaven (Luke 9 : 54), and to Peter for
drawing the sword (Matt. 26 : 52), his declaration that his
kingdom is not of this world (John 18 : 36), and his whole
spirit and aim, which is to save and not to destroy.

1 In his commentary on that passage (Harm. Evang., Pars. II. 43, Tho-
luck's edition), Calvin says: " Non improbo, quod Augustinus hoc testimonio
scepius contra Donatistas usus est, ut probaret, piorum principum edictis ad veri
Dei cultum et fidei unitatem licite cogi prcefractos et rebelles : quia, etsi voluntaria
est fides, videmus tamen, Us mediis utiliter domari eorum pervicaciam, qui non
nisi coacti parent."

§ 157. CALVIN'S DEFENCE OF THE PENALTY. 793

In his juvenile work on Seneca and in earlier editions of
his Institutes, Calvin had expressed noble sentiments on
toleration ; 1 even as Augustin did in his writings against
the Manichseans, among whom he himself had lived for
nine years ; but both changed their views for the worse in
their zeal for orthodoxy.

Calvin's " Defence " did not altogether satisfy even some
of his best friends. Zurkinden, the State Secretary of
Bern, wrote him Feb. 10, 1554: "I wish the former part
of your book, respecting the right which the magistrates
may have to use the sword in coercing heretics, had not
appeared in your name, but in that of your council, which
might have been left to defend its own act. I do not see
how you can find any favor with men of sedate mind in
being the first formally to treat this subject, which is a hate
ful one to almost all." 2 Bullinger intimated his objections
more mildly in a letter of March 26, 1554, in which he says :
"I only fear that your book will not be so acceptable to
many of the more simple-minded persons, who, nevertheless,
are attached both to yourself and to the truth, by reason of
its brevity and consequent obscurity, and the weightiness
of the subject. And, indeed, your style appears somewhat
perplexed, especially in this work." Calvin wrote in reply,
April 29, 1554 : " I am aware that I have been more concise
than usual in this treatise. However, if I should appear
to have faithfully and honestly defended the true doctrine,
it will more than recompense me for my trouble. But
though the candor and justice which are natural to you, as
well as your love towards me, lead you to judge of me favor
ably, there are others who assail me harshly as a master in
cruelty and atrocity, for attacking with my pen not only a

1 See Henry, II. 121-124 ; III. 224.

2 " Ego non video gratiam aliquam te inire posse apud sedati animi homines, quod
primus omnium ex professo fere hoc argumentum tractandum susceperis, omnibus
ferme invisum." Bibl. Gen. cod. 114. Trechsel, I. 269; Opera, XV. 22.

794 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

dead man, but one who perished by my hands. Some, even
not self-disposed towards me, wish that I had never entered
on the subject of the punishment of heretics, and say that
others in the like situation have held their tongues as the
best way of avoiding hatred. It is well, however, that I
have you to share my fault, if fault it be ; for you it was
who advised and persuaded me to it. Prepare yourself,
therefore, for the combat." 1

§ 158. A Plea for Religious Liberty. Castellio and Beza.

Cf. § 126, p. 627, and especially FERD. BUISSON, Se'bastien Castellion. Paris
(Hachette et Cic), 1892. 2 vols. 8vo (I. 358-413; II. 1-28).

A month after Calvin's defence of the death penalty of
heretics, there appeared at Basel a pseudonymous book in
defence of religious liberty, dedicated to Duke Christopher
of Wiirtemberg.2 It was edited and prefaced professedly by
MARTINUS BELLIUS, whose real name has never been dis
covered with certainty. Perhaps it was Martin Borrhaus of
Stuttgart (1499-1564), professor of Hebrew learning in the
University of Basel, and known under the name of " Cella-
rius," in honor of his first protector, Simon Cellarius (not
to be confounded with Michael Cellarius of Augsburg). He

1 " Alii me durius exagitant, quod scevitice et atrocitatis sim magister, quod
mortum hominem, qui manibus meis periit, calamo proscindam. /Sunt etiam quidarn
non malevoli, qui arc/amentum illud nunquam me attigisse cuperent, de hcereticis
puniendis, Dicunt enim alios omnes, ut invidiam fuqerent, data opera tacuisse. Sed
bene se habet, quod te habes culpce sociurn, si quiz tamen culpa est, quia mihi auctor
et hortator fuisti. Vide igitur, ut te ad certamen compares." Henry, III. 236
and Beilage, p. 87 ; Opera, XV. 124.

2 De ha^reticis, an sint persequendi, et omnino quomodo sit cum eis agendum
multorum turn veterum turn recentiorum sentential. Liber hoc tarn turbulento tempore
pernecessarius. Magdeburgi [false name for Basel] per Georgium Rausch,
anno Domini 1554, mense Martio (173 pp., 8vo). The name of the editor
who wrote the dedicatory preface is given as MARTINUS BELLIUS (in French,
MARTIN BELLIE), which was explained by the contemporaries as " Guerre a
la guerre, guerre a ceux qui usent du glaive." Buisson, I. 358. A copy which
belonged to Boniface Amerbach, is in the University Library of Basel
(II. 15).

§ 158. A PLEA FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 795

studied at Heidelberg and Wittenberg, appeared first among
the Zwickau Prophets, and then in connection with Carls tadt
(who ended his days likewise as a professor at Basel).1 The
book was misdated from Magdeburg, the stronghold of the
orthodox Lutherans, in opposition to the tyranny of the Im
perial Interim. A French edition appeared, nominally at
Rouen, but was probably printed at Lyons, where Castellio
had a brother in the printing business.2

Calvin at once suspected the true authors, and wrote to
Bullinger, March 28, 1554: "A book has just been clandes
tinely printed at Basel under false names, in which Castellio
and Curio pretend to prove that heretics should not be
repressed by the sword. Would that the pastors of that
church at length, though late, aroused themselves to prevent
the evil from spreading wider."3 A few days afterwards
Beza wrote to Bullinger about the same book, and gave it
as his opinion that the feigned Magdeburg was a city on the
Rhine [Basel], and that Castellio was the real author, who
treated the most important articles of faith as useless or
indifferent, and put the Bible on a par with the Ethics of
Aristotle.4

Castellio wrote, however, only a part of the book. He
adopted the pseudonym of Basilius (i.e. Sebastian) Montr
fortius (i.e. Castellio).5

1 See Riggenbach in Herzog,2 III. 166, and Buisson, II. 10 sq.

2 Traicte des heretiques, a savoir si on les doit perse'cuter, et comme on se doit
conduire avec eux, selon I'advis, opinion, et sentence de pleusieurs auteurs tant
anciens que modernes : grandement necessaire en ce temps plein de troubles, et tres
utile a tons, et principalement aux Princes et Magistrals, pour cognoistre quel est
lenr office en line chose tant difficile et perilleuse. Rouen, Pierre Freneau, 1554
(139 pp., 8vo). I copy the title from Buisson, I. 358. He gives a full analy
sis and extracts (pp. 360 sqq.). The book is exceedingly rare.

3 Opera, XV. 96.

4 Opera, XV. 97.

5 As Schweizer has shown, see above, p. 627. Buisson ignores Schweizer,
but comes to the same conclusion (I. 404) : " BASILE est un equivalent tres
plausible de SEBASTIEN*, et MONTFORT e'veille une idee toute voisine de celle de

CASTELLUM OU de CHATILLON."

7 90 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

The body of this work consists of a collection of testimo
nies in favor of religious toleration, extracted from the
writings of Luther (his book, Von weltlicher Obrigkeit, 1523),
Brenz (who maintain that heresy as long as it keeps in the
intellectual sphere should be punished only by the Word of
God), Erasmus, Sebastian Frank, several Church Fathers
(Lactantius, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustin, in his anti-
Manicheean writings), Otto Brunsfeld (d. at Bern, 1534),
Urbanus Rhegius (Lutheran theologian, d. 1541), Conrad
Pellican (Hebrew professor at Zurich, d. 1556), Caspar
Hedio, Christoph Hoffmann, Georg Kleinberg (a pseudonym)
and even Calvin (in the first edition of his Institutes). This
collection was probably made by Curio.

The epilogue is written by Castellio, and is the most
important part of the book. He examines the different
biblical and patristic passages quoted for and against intoler
ance. He argues against his opponents from the multiplicity
of sects which disagree on the interpretation of Scripture,
and concludes that, on their principles, they should all be
exterminated except one. He justly charges St. Augustin
with inconsistency in his treatment of the Donatists, for
which, he says, he was punished by the invasion of the Arian
Vandals. The lions turned against those who had unchained
them. Persecution breeds Christian hypocrites in place of
open heretics. It provokes counter-persecution, as was just
then seen in England after the accession of Queen Mary,
which caused the flight of English Protestants to Switzerland.
In conclusion he gives an allegorical picture of a journey
through the centuries showing the results of the two conflict
ing principles of force and liberty, of intolerance and charity,
and leaves the reader to decide which of the two armies is
the army of Jesus Christ.

Castellio anticipated Bayle and Voltaire, or rather the
Baptists and Quakers. He was the champion of religious
liberty in the sixteenth century. He claimed it in the name

§ 158. A PLEA FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 797

of the gospel and the Reformation. It was appropriate that
this testimony should come from the Swiss city of Basel, the
home of Erasmus.1

But the leaders of the Swiss Reformation in Geneva and
Zurich could see in this advocacy of religious freedom only
a most dangerous heresy, which would open the door to all
kinds of errors and throw the Church of Christ into inex
tricable confusion.

Theodore Beza, the faithful aid of Calvin, took up his pen
against the anonymous sceptics of Basel, and defended the
right and duty of the Christian magistrate to punish heresy.
His work appeared in September, 1554 ; that is, five months
after the book of Martinus Bellius. It was Beza's first published
theological treatise (he was then thirty -five years of age).2

The book has a polemic and an apologetic part. In the
former, Beza tries to refute the principle of toleration; in
the latter, to defend the conduct of Geneva. He contends
that the toleration of error is indifference to truth, and that
it destroys all order and discipline in the Church. Even the
enforced unity of the papacy is much better than anarchy.
Heresy is much worse than murder, because it destroys the
soul. The spiritual power has nothing to do with temporal
punishments ; but it is the right and duty of the civil gov
ernment, which is God's servant, to see to it that he receives
his full honor in the community. Beza appeals to the laws
of Moses and the acts of kings Asa and Josiah against
blasphemers and false prophets. All Christian rulers have

1 Michelet (Renaissance') says : " Un pauvre prote d'imprimerie, S&astien
Chateillon, posa pour tout I'avenir la grande loi de la tolerance" Buisson has
chosen this sentence as the motto of his work. He calls Castellio (II. 268)
"dans le protestantisme fran$ais, le premier des modernes."

2 It was entitled : De hcereticis a civili magistratu puniendis libellus, adversus
Martini Bellii farraqinem et novorurn Academicorum sectam, THEODORO BEZA
VEZELIO auctore. Oliva Roberti Stephani, MDLIIII (271 pp., 8vo). Re
printed in his Tractationes Theologies, 2d ed., 1582, pp. 85-169. Nicolas
Colladon published a French translation : Traitte' de Vauthorite du magistral en
la punition des he're'tiques, etc., 1560. Buisson, II. 19.

798 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

punished obstinate heretics. The oecumenical synods (from
325 to 787) were called and confirmed by emperors who
punished the offenders. Whoever denies to the civil author
ity the right to restrain and punish pernicious errors against
public worship undermines the authority of the Bible. He
cites in confirmation passages from Luther, Melanchthon,
Urbanus Rhegius, Brenz, Bucer, Capito, Bullinger, Musculus,
and the Church of Geneva. He closes the argument as
follows : u The duty of the civil authority in this matter is
hedged about by these three regulations : (1) It must strictly
confine itself to its own sphere, and not presume to define
heresy ; that belongs to the Church alone. (2) It must not
pass judgment with regard to persons, advantages, and cir
cumstances, but with pure regard to the honor of God. (3) It
must proceed after quiet, regular examination of the heresy
and mature consideration of all the circumstances, and inflict
such punishment as will best secure the honor due to the
divine Majesty and the peace and unity of the Church."

This theory, which differs little from the papal theory of
intolerance, except in regard to the definition of heresy and
the mode and degree of punishment, was accepted for a long
time in the Reformed Churches with few dissenting voices ;
but, fortunately, there was no occasion for another capital
punishment of heresy in the Church of Geneva after the
burning of Servetus.

The evil which Calvin and Beza did was buried with their
bones ; the greater good which they did will live on forever.
Dr. Willis, though a decided apologist of Servetus, makes
the admission : " Calvin must nevertheless be thought of as
the real herald of modern freedom. Holding ignorance to be
incompatible with the existence of a people at once religious
and free, Calvin had the schoolhouse built beside the Church,
and brought education within the reach of all. Nor did he
overlook the higher culture." 1

1 Servetus and Calvin, p. 514. See below, § 161.

CHAPTER XVII.
CALVIN ABROAD.

CALVIN'S Correspondence in his Opera, vols. X.-XX. — HENRY, III. 395-549
(Calvin's Wirksamkeit nach aussen). — STAHELIN, I. 505-588; II. 5 sqq.

§ 159. Calvin's Catholicity of Spirit.

CALVIN was a Frenchman by birth and education, a
Swiss by adoption and life-work, a cosmopolitan in spirit
and aim.

The Church of God was his home, and that Church knows
no boundaries of nationality and language. The world was
his parish. Having left the papacy, he still remained a
Catholic in the best sense of that word, and prayed and
labored for the unity of all believers. Like his friend
Melanchthon, he deeply deplored the divisions of Protestant
ism. To heal them he was willing to cross ten oceans.
Thus he wrote, in reply to Archbishop Cranmer, who had
invited him (March 20, 1552), with Melanchthon and
Bullinger, to a meeting in Lambeth Palace for the purpose
of drawing up a consensus creed for the Reformed Churches.1
After expressing his zeal for the Church universal, he con
tinues (Oct. 14, 1552) : -

"I wish, indeed, it could be brought about that men of learning and
authority from the different churches should meet somewhere, and after thor
oughly discussing the different articles of faith, should, by a unanimous
decision, deliver down to posterity some certain rule of doctrine. But
amongst the chief evils of the age must be reckoned the marked division
between the different churches, insomuch that human society can hardly be
said to be established among us, much less a holy communion of the mem
bers of Christ, which, though all profess it, few indeed really observe with

1 See Cranmer's letter of invitation in Calvin's Opera, XIV. 306.

799

800 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

sincerity. But if the clergy are more lukewarm than they should be, the
fault lies chiefly with their sovereigns, who are either so involved in their
secular affairs, as to neglect altogether tire welfare of the Church, and indeed
religion itself, or so well content to see their own countries at peace as to care
little about others; and thus the members being divided, the body of the
Church lies lacerated.

"As to myself, if I should be thought of any use, I would not, if need
be, object to cross ten seas for such a purpose. If the assisting of England
were alone concerned, that would be motive enough with me. Much more,
therefore, am I of opinion, that I ought to grudge no labor or trouble, seeing
that the object in view is an agreement among the learned, to be drawn up
by the weight of their authority according to Scripture, in order to unite
Churches seated far apart. But my insignificance makes me hope that I may
be spared. I shall have discharged my part by offering up my prayers for
what may have been done by others. Melanchthon is so far off that it takes
some time to exchange letters. Bullinger has, perhaps, already answered
you. I only wish that I had the power, as I have the inclination, to serve
the cause." l

This noble project was defeated or indefinitely postponed
by the death of Edward VI. and the martyrdom of Cranmer,
but it continues to live as a pium desiderium. In opposition
to a mechanical and enforced uniformity, Calvin suggested
the idea of a spiritual unity with denominational variety, or
of one flock in many folds under one shepherd.2 This idea
was taken up in our age by the Evangelical Alliance, the
Pan-Anglican Council, the Pan-Presbyterian Alliance, the
Pan-Methodist Conference, the Young Men's Christian Asso
ciations, the Christian Endeavor Societies, and similar volun-

1 " Quantum ad me attinet, si quis mei usus fore videbitur, ne decem quidem
maria, si opus sit, ob earn rem trajicere pigeat. Si de juvando tanturn Anglice
regno ageretur, jam mihi ea satis leg itima ratio for et. Nunc cum quoeratur gravis
et ad Scripturoz normam probe compositus doctorum hominum consensus, quo ecclesice
procul alioqui dissitce inter se coalescant, nullis vel laboribus vel molestiis parcere
fas mihi esse arbitror. Verum tenuitatem meam facturam spero, ut mihi parcatur.
Si votis prosequar, quod ab aliis susceptum erit, partibns meis defunctus ero. D.
PHILIPPUS longius abest, quam ut ultro citroque commeare brevi tempore literce
queant. D. BULLINGERUS tibi forte jam rescripsit. Mihi utinam par studii ardori
suppeteret facultas ! " See Opera, XIV. 312 sqq. ; Cranmer's Works (Parker
Soc. ed.), vol. II. pp. 430-433.

2 John 10: 16, /u.ia iroi^vi] (not auArj), els TTOI/XTJV. The E. V., following the
Latin Vulgate, wrongly translates, " one fold," which suggests the Roman
idea of one external organization, like the papacy.

§ 159. CALVIN'S CATHOLICITY OF SPIRIT. 801

tary associations, which bring Christians of different churches
and nationalities together for mutual conference and co-opera
tion, without interfering with their separate organization and
denominational preferences.

A lasting monument of Calvin's catholicity is his immense
correspondence, which fills ten quarto volumes of the last
edition of his works, and embraces in all no less than forty-
two hundred and seventy-one letters. He left to Beza a
collection of manuscripts with discretionary power to publish
from it what he deemed might promote the edification of the
Church of God. Accordingly, Beza edited the first collection
of Calvin's letters eleven years after his death, at Geneva,
1575. This edition was several times republished, and grad
ually enriched by letters discovered in various libraries by
Liebe, Mosheim, Bretschneider, Crottet, Jules Bonnet, Henry,
Reuss, and Herminjard.

No theologian has left behind him a correspondence equal
in extent, ability, and interest. In these letters Calvin dis
cusses the profoundest topics of religion ; he gives advice as
a faithful pastor ; administers comfort to suffering brethren ;
pours out his heart to his friends ; solves difficult political
questions, as a wise statesman, in the complications of the
little Republic with Bern, Savoy, and France. Among his
correspondents are all the surviving Reformers — Melanch-
thon, Bucer, Bullinger, Farel, Viret, Cranmer, Knox, Beza,
Peter Martyr, John a Lasco ; crowned heads — Queen
Marguerite of Navarre, the Duchess Rene*e of Ferrara, King
Sigismund Augustus of Poland, the Elector Otto Heinrich
of the Palatinate, Duke Christopher of Wiirtemberg ; states
men and high officers, like Duke Somerset, the Protector of
England, Prince Radziwil of Poland, Admiral Coligny ol
France, the magistrates of Zurich, Bern, Basel, St. Gall, and
Frankfort; and humble confessors and martyrs to whom
he sent letters of comfort in prison.

802 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

§ 160. Geneva an Asylum for Protestants from all Countries.

Calvin gave to Geneva a cosmopolitan character which
it retains to this day. It became, through him, as already
stated, the capital of the Reformed Churches, and was called
the Protestant Rome. Philip II. of Spain wrote to the
French king : " Geneva is the source of all misfortune to
France, the refuge of all heretics, the most terrible enemy
of Rome. I am ready at any time, with all the power of my
kingdom, to aid in its destruction." That city was, indeed,
in the sixteenth century what North America has become,
on a much larger scale, since the seventeenth century. It
was an asylum for persecuted confessors of the evangelical
faith without distinction of nationality, an impregnable
moral fortress built upon the rock of the Bible.1

Zurich, Basel, and Strassburg were the only places in
that age which can be compared with Geneva in generous
hospitality to strangers.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century the city of
Geneva numbered 12,000 souls, in 1543 not more than
13,000 ; but in the seven years from 1543 to 1550 it increased
to 20,000, or at the rate of 1000 a year. This increase was
chiefly due to the continuous influx of persecuted Prot
estants from France, Italy, and England. Some came also
from Spain and Holland.2 Most of them were educated men
and not a feAV of them distinguished for learning and social
position, as Cordier, Colladon, Etienne (Stephens), Marot,
Ochino, Carraccioli, Knox, Whittingham. They had made
sacrifices for the sake of religion, and thereby acquired the

1 Michelet (Histoire de France, vol. X. 414) calls Calvinistic Geneva " la
cite de I'esprit bdtie de stoicisms sur le roc de la predestination" and (in vol. XI.
93) "lafabrique des saints et des marti/rs, la sombre forge oil se forgeaissent les e'lus
de la mort."

2 Fourteen hundred French families settled in Geneva in eight years,
during the reign of Henri II. Gaberel, Histoire de I'UJglise de Geneve, I. 346 ;
Michelet, X. 414.

§ 161. THE ACADEMY OF GENEVA. 803

honor of confessors with the spirit of martyrs. There were
special congregations for Italians and Englishmen, who were
provided by the city with suitable places of worship. Calvin
treated the refugees with great hospitality. He secured to
them as far as possible the rights of citizenship. Some of
them were even elected to the Large Council. An insult
to a refugee from religious persecution was as punishable
as an insult to a minister of the gospel. The favor and priv
ileges accorded to these foreigners excited the envy and
jealousy of the native Genevese, who opposed their admission
to citizenship and their right to carry arms. This exclusive
nativism gave Calvin a great deal of trouble.

The little Republic of Geneva was continually exposed to
the danger of absorption by Savoy, France, and Spain, which
hated her as the stronghold of heresy. It was in a large
measure due to the wisdom and firmness of Calvin that in
those critical times she preserved her liberty and independ
ence. He also resisted the repeated attempts of Bern to
interfere with the doctrine and discipline of the Church.

Geneva offers a wonderful aspect in modern history.
" Embracing the elite of three nations, melted into one
whole by the spirit of one man, it continues in the midst of
mighty and bitter foes, without any external support, simply
through its moral force. It has no territory, 110 army, no
treasures, no temporal, no material resources. There it
stands, a city of the spirit, built of Christian stoicism on
the rock of predestination."

§ 161. The Academy of Greneva. The High School of
Reformed Theology.

I. CALVIX : Leges Academice Genevensis, or L'Ordre du College de Geneve, first

published in Latin and French. Geneva, 1559. Republished by CHARLES
LE FORT, professor of law at Geneva, on the third centennial of the
founding of the Academy, June 5, 1859, and in Opera, X. 65-90.

II. BERTHAULT : Mathurin Cordier. L'enseignement chez les premiers Calvinistes.
Paris, 1876 (85 pp.)- — MASSEBIEAU : Les collogues scolaires du seizieme

804 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

siecle et leurs auteurs. Paris, 1878. — AMIEL et BOUVIER : L'enseignement
superieur a Geneve depuis la fondation de I'academie jusqu'a 2876. Gen.,
1878. Comp. HENRY, III. 386 sqq. ; STAHELIN, II. 487-498; GABEREL,
II. 109 sqq.; BUISSON: Se'b. Castellion (Paris, 1892), I. 121-151.

One of the most important institutions of Geneva which
strengthened the Reformed religion at home, and extended
it abroad, is the Academy founded by Calvin. Knowing that
the ignorance of the Roman priesthood was a source of much
superstition and corruption, he labored zealously for the
education of the ministry and the whole people, and secured
the best teachers, as Cordier, Saunier, Castellio, and Beza.

There was a college in Geneva, since 1428, called after its
founder " College Versomiex," for the training of the clergy ;
but it had fallen into decay, and was reorganized after Calvin's
return in 1541. Tuition was free. To avoid overcrowding
and to bring the facilities of education within the reach of
every youth, four elementary schools were established for
each of the four quarters of the city. At first a small fee
was charged, but it was abolished by the council after 1571,
at the request of Beza. A much larger attendance was the
effect. Calvin is sometimes called the founder of the com
mon school system.

He wished to establish a full university with four faculties,
but the limited means of the little Republic would not per
mit that ; so he confined himself to an Academy. He himself
collected for it from house to house 10,024 gold guilders,
a very large sum for that time. Several foreign residents
contributed liberally : Carraccioli, 2954 ; Pierre Orsieres,
312; Matthieu de la Roche, 260 guilders. Of the native
Genevese, Bonivard, the old champion of liberty, bequeathed
his whole fortune to the institution.1 The Council put up a
commodious building. Calvin drew up the programme of
studies and the academic statutes, which, after careful exam
ination, were unanimously approved.

1 Senebier, Hist. lit. I. 48 sq. ; Henry, III. 386.

§ 161. THE ACADEMY OF GENEVA. 805

The Academy was solemnly dedicated on June 5, 1559, in
the church of St. Peter, in the presence of the whole Coun
cil, the ministers, and six hundred students. Calvin invoked
the blessing of God upon the institution, which was to be
forever dedicated to science and religion, and made some
short and weighty remarks in French. Michael Roset, the
Secretary of State, read the Confession of Faith and the
statutes by which the institution was to be guided. Theo
dore Beza was proclaimed rector and delivered an inaugural
address in Latin. Calvin closed with prayer. Ten able and
experienced professors were associated with him for the
different departments of grammar, logic, mathematics,
physics, music, and the ancient languages. Calvin himself
was to continue his theological lectures in connection with
Beza.

The statutes which were read on this occasion lay great
stress on French and Latin composition. The Latin authors
to be studied are : Csesar, Livy, Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid ;
the Greek authors : Herodotus, Xenophon, Homer, Demos
thenes, Plutarch, and Plato. There was also a special chair
of Hebrew which was assigned to Chevalier, a pupil of
Vatable and formerly tutor of Queen Elizabeth. Teachers
and pupils had to sign the Apostles' Creed and a confession
of faith, which, however, wisely omitted the favorite dogma
of predestination, and was abolished in 1576 in order to
admit " Papists and Lutherans." Religious exercises opened
and closed the daily instructions.

The success of the school was extraordinary. No less than
nine hundred young men from almost all the nations of Europe
were matriculated in the first year as regular scholars, and
almost as many, mostly refugees from France and England,
prepared themselves by the theological lectures of Calvin
for the work of evangelists and teachers in their native
land. Among these was John Knox, the great Reformer of
Scotland.

806 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

The Academy continued to flourish with some interrup
tions. It attracted students from all parts of Protestant
Europe, and numbered among its teachers such men as
Casaubon, Spangenheim, Hotoman, Francis and Alphoiise
Turretin, Leclerc, Pictet de Saussure, and Charles Bonnet.
It was the chief nursery of Protestant ministers and teachers
for France, and the principle school of reformed theology
and literary culture for more than two hundred years. A
degree from that Academy was equivalent in Holland to a
degree of any University. Arminius was sent there by the
city of Amsterdam to be educated under Beza (1582), who
gave him a good testimonial, not knowing that he would
become the leader of a mighty reaction against Calvinism.

In 1859 the third centennial of the Academy was cele
brated in Geneva.

The evangelistic work of that Academy was resumed and
is successfully carried on in the spirit of Calvin by the Evan
gelical Society and the Free Theological Seminary of Geneva,
which numbered among its first teachers Merle d'Aubigne,
the distinguished historian of the Reformation.

§ 162. Calvin's Influence upon the Reformed Churches of the

Continent.

Calvin's moral power extended over all the Reformed
Churches, and over several nationalities — Swiss, French,
German, Polish, Bohemian, Hungarian, Dutch, English,
Scotch, and American. His religious influence upon the
Anglo-Saxon race in both continents is greater than that of
any native Englishman, and continues to this day.1

1 It is interesting to read the judgment on Calvin's influence by a highly
accomplished lady, who moved in the best society of England and the Conti
nent. The Baroness Bunsen, whose husband was successively Prussian Am
bassador in Italy, Switzerland, and England, writes in one of her letters (Aug.
19, 1865) : " I read in the winter a life of Calvin by Bungener, and a very
painful book it is, but the subject is of grand effect from the display of moral

§ 162. CALVIN'S INFLUENCE UPON THE CHUKCHES. 807

CALVIN AND FRANCE.

Calvin never entered French soil after his settlement in
Geneva, and was not even a citizen of the Republic till 1559;
but his heart was still in France. From the time he wrote
that eloquent letter to Francis the First, in dedicating to him
his Institutes, he followed the Protestant movement with
the liveliest interest. He was the head of the French Refor
mation and consulted at every step. He was called as pastor
to the first Protestant church in Paris, but declined. He
gave to the Huguenots their creed and form of government.
The Gallican Confession of 1559, also called the Confession
of Rochelle, was, in its first draft, his work, and his pupil
Antoine de la Roche Chandieu (also called Sadeel) brought
it into its present enlarged shape, in which it was presented
by Beza to Charles IX. at the Colloquy at Poissy, 1561,
and signed at the Synod of La Rochelle, 1571, by the Queen
Jeanne d'Albret of Navarre ; her son, Prince Henry of
Navarre (Henry IV.) ; Prince Conde ; Prince Louis, Count
of Nassau ; Admiral Coligny ; Chatillon ; several nobles, and
all the preachers present.1

The history of French Protestantism down to 1564 is
largely identified with Calvin's name. He induced the Swiss
Cantons and the princes of the Smalkaldian League to inter
cede for the persecuted Huguenots. He sent messengers and
letters of comfort to the prisoners. " The reverence," says
one of his biographers, " with which his name was mentioned,
the boundless confidence reposed in his person, the enthu
siasm of the disciples who hastened to him, or came from
him, surpasses all the usual experience of men. Congrega-

power almost unequalled. . . . The merit of Calvin is his own, and he has
been the creative instrument of the strength of England, of Scotland, of the
United States of America, not to speak of the Protestants of France, who
have been scattered abroad to sow good seed in every country into which
they fled, as not being suffered to build up their own."
1 Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, vol. I. 490—501.

808 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

tions appealed to him for preachers ; princes and noblemen
for decisive counsel in political complications ; those in doubt
for instruction ; the persecuted for protection ; the martyrs for
exhortation and encouragement in cheerful suffering and
dying. And as the eye of a father watches over his chil
dren, Calvin watched with untiring care of love over all
these relations in their manifold ramifications, and sought
to be the same to the great community of his brethren in
France what he was to the little Republic at home."1

Roman Catholic writers have made Calvin responsible for
the civil wars in France, as they have made Luther respon
sible for the Peasants' War and the Thirty Years' War.
But the Reformers preached reformation by the word and
the spirit, not revolution by the sword. The chief cause
of the religious wars in the sixteenth and seventeenth centu
ries was the intolerance of the papacy. Bossuet charges
Calvin with complicity in the conspiracy of Amboise, which
was a political coup d'etat to check the power of the
Guises (1560). Calvin was indeed informed of the plot,
but warned against it, first privately, then publicly, and
predicted its disastrous failure. He constantly upheld the
principle of obedience to the rightful magistrate, and opposed
violent measures. "The first drop of blood," he said, "which,
we shed will cause streams of blood to flow. Let us rather a
hundred times perish than bring such disgrace upon the name
of Christianity and the cause of the gospel."2 Afterwards
when a war in self-defence was inevitable, he reluctantly
gave his consent, but protested against all excesses.3

Calvin did not live to weep over the terrible massacre of
St. Bartholomew's day, nor to rejoice over the Edict of
Nantes ; but his spirit accompanied " the Church of the

1 Stahelin, I. 507.

2 See Letters in Bonnet, II. 382-391 ; his letter to Bullinger, May 11, 1560;
Basnage, Hist, de la Eeligion des Itgl. ref. II. 192-200 ; Henry, III. 545 sqq. ;
Dyer, 478 sqq. ; Stahelin, I. 615-619.

8 Stahelin, I. 626 sqq.

§162.

Desert," whose motto was the burning bush (Ex. 3:2); and
every Huguenot who left France for the sake of his faith,
carried to his new home in Switzerland, or Brandenburg, or
Holland, or England, or America, a profound reverence for
the name of John Calvin.

CALVIN AND THE WALDENSES.

The Waldenses are the only mediaeval sect which survives
to this day, because they progressed with the Reformation
and adhered to the Bible as their rule of faith.1 They sent a
deputation of two of their pastors, in 1530, to CEcolampadius
at Basel, Bucer and Capito at Strassburg, and Berthold Haller
at Bern, for information concerning the principles of the
Reformation, and made common cause with the Protestants.2
They were distinguished for industry, virtue, and simple,
practical piety, but their heresy attracted the attention of the
authorities. They were cited before the Parliament at Aix,
and the heads of their families were condemned to death in
November, 1540. The execution of the atrocious sentence
was delayed till the king's wishes should be ascertained. In
February, 1541, Francis granted them pardon for the past,
but required them to recant within three months. They
adhered to their faith. On the 28th of April, 1545, a fiendish
scheme of butchery — under the direction of Baron d'Oppede,
military governor of Provence, and Cardinal Tournon, the
bigoted and bloodthirsty archbishop of Lyons — was carried
out against these innocent people. Their chief towns of
Merindol and Cabri£res, together with twenty-eight villages,

1 The cognate Bohemian Brethren continued under a new name in the
Moravian Brotherhood (Unitas Fratrum, Brudergemeinde}.

2 Creeds of Christendom, I. 565 sqq. See also a report of conversations
which Calvin had at Strassburg with Matthias Czervenka, a Bohemian, about
the Bohemian Brethren in Gindely, Quellen zur Gesch. der bohmischen Briider,
Wien, 1859, p. 68, quoted in Annal Calv. XXI. 260 sqq. Calvin objected to
the Waldenses at that time, that they claimed merit and did not leave room
for the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ.

810 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

were destroyed, the women outraged, and about four thou
sand persons slaughtered.

Great numbers of the Waldenses sought refuge in flight.
The noble and humane Bishop Sadolet of Carpentras, received
them kindly, and interceded for them with the King. Four
thousand went to Geneva. Calvin started a subscription for
them, provided them with lodging and employment at the
fortifications, and made every effort to get the Swiss Cantons
to intercede with King Francis in behalf of those Waldenses
who remained in France. He travelled to Bern, Zurich, and
Aarau for this purpose. He even intended to go to Paris, but
was prevented by sickness. The Cantons actually wrote to
the king in the strongest terms, but he rebuked them for
meddling with his affairs. Viret visited the French court

with letters of recommendation from the Swiss Cantons and
the Smalkaldian League, but likewise without result.1

Since that time there has been a fraternal intercourse
between the Waldenses and the French Swiss, and many of
their most useful pastors were educated at Geneva and
Lausanne. The Waldensian Confession of 1655 is Calvin-
istic and based upon the Gallican Confession of 1559.2 After
many persecutions in their mountain homes in Piedmont, the
Waldenses obtained freedom in 1848, and since that time,
and especially since 1870, they have become zealous evan
gelists in the united kingdom of Italy, with a church even
in Rome and a flourishing theological college in Florence.

CALVIN IN GERMANY.

Calvin labored three years in Germany ; he felt closely
allied to the Lutheran Church; he had the profouridest
regard for Luther, in spite of his infirmities ; he was the
intimate friend of Melanchthon ; he attended three colloquies

1 Baum, Beza, I. 240 sqq. ; Stahelin, I. 509-512 ; Dyer, 193-198.

2 Creeds of Christendom, III. 757-770 (French and English).

§ 162. CALVIN'S INFLUENCE UPON THE CHURCHES. 811

between Lutheran and Roman Catholic divines ; he once
signed the Augsburg Confession (1541), as understood, ex
plained, and improved by its author. He followed the
progress of the Reformation in Germany step by step with
the warmest interest, as is shown in his correspondence and
various writings.

He did not labor for a separate Reformed Church in Ger
many, but for a free confederation of the Swiss and Lutheran
Churches. But the fanatical bigotry of such men as Flacius,
Westphal, and Heshusius produced a reaction and drove a
large part of the moderate or Melanchthonian Lutherans into
the Reformed communion.

The Reformed Church in the Electoral Palatinate was the
result of a co-operation of Melanchthonian and Calvinistic
influences under the pious Elector, Frederick III. The Hei
delberg Catechism is the joint work of Ursinus, a pupil of
Melanchthon, and Olevianus, a pupil of Calvin. It appeared
in 1563, three years after Melanchthon's death, one year
before Calvin's death, and became the leading symbol of the
Palatinate and the Reformed Churches in Germany and
Holland.1 It gives the best expression to Calvin's views on
the Lord's Supper, and on Election, but wisely omits all
reference to an eternal decree of reprobation and preterition ;
following in this respect Calvin's own catechism. The well-
known first question is a gem and presents the bright and
comforting side of the doctrine of Election : —

" What is thy only comfort in life and in death ? "

" That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but
belong to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ, who with His precious blood has
fully satisfied for all my sins, and redeemed me from all the power of the
devil; and so preserves me, that without the will of my Father in heaven not
a hair can fall from my head ; yea, that all things must work together for
my salvation. Wherefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eter
nal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready henceforth to live unto
Him."

1 See Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, vol. I. pp. 529 sqq.

812 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

The influence of Calvinism and Presbyterian Church gov
ernment extended, indirectly, also over the Lutheran Church
and was modified in turn by Luther anism.

John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, and ancestor of
the Kings of Prussia and Emperors of Germany, adopted the
Calvinistic faith in a moderate form (1613). l Frederick
William, "the great Elector," the proper founder of the Prus
sian Monarchy, secured the legal recognition of the Reformed
Church in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), and answered
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) by a hospitable
invitation of the persecuted Huguenots to his country, where
they settled in large numbers. King Frederick William
III. introduced, at the third centenary of the Reformation
(1817), the Evangelical Union of the Lutheran and Reformed
Churches of Prussia ; and among the chief advocates of the
union was Schleiermacher, the son of a Calvinistic minister,
the pupil of the Moravians, and the renovator of German
theology, which itself is the result of a commingling of
Lutheran and Reformed elements with a decided advance
upon narrow confessionalism.

We may add that, while Calvin's rigorous doctrine of pre
destination in its dualistic form will never satisfy the German
mind, his doctrine of the sacraments has made great progress
in the Lutheran Church and seems to offer a solid basis for
a satisfactory theory on the mystery of the spiritual real
presence and fruition of Christ in the Holy Supper.

CALVIN AND HOLLAND.

The Netherlands derived the Reformation first from Ger
many, and soon afterwards from Switzerland and France.
The Calvinists outnumbered the Lutherans and Anabap
tists, and the Reformed Church became the State religion
in Holland.

1 Creeds of Christendom, I. 555 sqq.

§ 162. CALVIN'S INFLUENCE UPON THE CHURCHES. 813

Two Augustinian monks were burned for heresy in Brus
sels in 1523, and were celebrated by Luther in a stirring
hymn as the first evangelical martyrs. This was the fiery
signal of a fearful persecution, which raged during the reigns
of Charles V. and Philip II., and resulted at last in the estab
lishment of national independence and civil and religious
liberty. During that memorable struggle of eighty years,
more Protestants were put to death for their conscientious
belief by the Spaniards than Christians suffered martyrdom
under the Roman Emperors in the first three centuries.
William of Orange, the hero of the war and a liberal Calvin-
ist, was assassinated by an obscure fanatic (1584) .* His
second son, Maurice, a strict Calvinist (d. 1625), carried on
and completed the conflict (1609). The horrible barbarities
practised upon men, women, and unborn children, especially
during the governorship of that bloodhound, the Duke of
Alva, from 1567-1573, are almost beyond belief. We quote
from the classical history of Motley : " The number of Nether-
landers who were burned, strangled, beheaded, or buried
alive, in obedience to the edicts of Charles V., and for the
offences of reading the Scriptures, of looking askance at a
graven image, or of ridiculing the actual presence of the
body and blood of Christ in a wafer, have been placed as
high as one hundred thousand by distinguished authorities,
and have never been put at a lower mark than fifty thousand.
The Venetian envoy Navigero placed the number of victims

1 Motley (The Rise of the Dutch Republic, III. 617) thus characterizes
William of Orange, the Washington of Holland : " He was more than any
thing else a religious man. From his trust in God, he ever derived support
and consolation in the darkest hours. Implicitly relying upon Almighty
wisdom and goodness, he looked danger in the face with a constant smile,
and endured incessant labors and trials with a serenity which seemed more
than human. While, however, his soul was full of piety, it was tolerant of
error. Sincerely and deliberately himself a convert to the Reformed Church,
he was ready to extend freedom of worship to Catholics on the one hand, and
to Anabaptists on the other, for no man ever felt more keenly than he that
the Reformer who becomes in his turn a bigot is doubly odious."

814 THE INFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

in the provinces of Holland and Friesland alone at thirty
thousand, and this in 1546, ten years before the abdication,
and five before the promulgation of the hideous edict of
1550." 1 Of the administration of the Duke of Alva, Motley
says : " On his journey from the Netherlands, he is said to
have boasted that he had caused eighteen thousand six hun
dred inhabitants of the provinces to be executed during the
period of his government. The number of those who had
perished by battle, siege, starvation, and massacre, defied com
putation. . . . After having accomplished the military enter
prise [in Portugal] entrusted to him, he fell into a lingering
fever, at the termination of which he was so much reduced
that he was only kept alive by milk which he drank from
a woman's breast. Such was the gentle second childhood
of the man who had almost literally been drinking blood
for seventy years. He died on the 12th of December,
1582." 2

The Bible, with the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg
Catechism, was the spiritual guide of the Protestants, and
inspired them with that heroic courage which triumphed
over the despotism of Spain, and raised Holland to an
extraordinary degree of political, commercial, and literary
eminence.3

1 J. L. Motley, The Else of the Dutch Republic, vol. I. p. 114.

2 Ibid. vol. II. 497. Comp. the description of Alva's cruelties and the
sufferings of the Protestants under his reign of terror on pp. 503 sq., and
B. ter Haar's History of the Reformation (German translation from the Dutch),
II. 86 sqq. and 127 sqq,

3 Motley, who was a Unitarian, does at least this justice to the practical
effects of Calvinism in Holland and elsewhere: "The doctrine of predestina
tion, the consciousness of being chosen soldiers of Christ, inspired those
Puritans who founded the commonwealths of England, of Holland, and of
America with a contempt of toil, danger, and death which enabled them to
accomplish things almost supernatural. No uncouthness of phraseology, no
unlovely austerity of deportment, could, except to vulgar minds, make that
sublime enthusiasm ridiculous, which on either side the ocean ever confronted
tyranny with dauntless front, and welcomed death on battlefield, scaffold, or
rack with perfect composure. The early Puritan at least believed. The very
intensity of his belief made him — all unconsciously to himself, and narrowed

§ 162. CALVIN'S INFLUENCE UPON THE CHURCHES. 815

The Belgic Confession of 1561 was prepared by Guido de
Bres, and revised by Francis Junius, a student of Calvin. It
became the recognized symbol of the Reformed Churches of
Holland and Belgium.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century, Armimanism
rose as a necessary and wholesome reaction against spholastic
Calvinism, but was defeated in the Synod of Dort, 1619, which
adopted the five knotty canons of unconditional predestina
tion, limited atonement, total depravity, irresistible grace, and
the perseverance of saints. The Dutch Reformed Church
in the United States still holds to the Canons of Dort. But
Arminianism, although temporarily expelled, was allowed to
return to Holland after the death of Maurice, and gradually
pervaded the national Church. It largely entered the Church
of England under the Stuarts. It assumed new vigor through
the great Methodist Revival, which made it a converting and
missionary agency in both hemispheres, and the most formi
dable rival of Calvinism in the Anglo-American Churches.
A greater man and more abundant in self-denying and fruit
ful apostolic labors has not risen in the Protestant churches
since the death of Calvin than John Wesley, whose "parish
was the world." But he was aided in the great Anglo-
American Revival by George Whitefield, who was both a
Calvinist and a true evangelist.

Calvinism emphasizes divine sovereignty and free grace;
Arminianism emphasizes human responsibility. The one
restricts the saving grace to the elect : the other extends it
to all men on the condition of faith. Both are right in what
they assert ; both are wrong in what they deny. If one im
portant truth is pressed to the exclusion of another truth of
equal importance, it becomes an error, and loses its hold
upon the conscience.

as was his view of his position — the great instrument by which the widest
human liberty was to be gained for all mankind." History of the United

Netherlands, vol. IV. 548.

816 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

The Bible gives us a theology which is more human than
Calvinism, and more divine than Arminianism, and more
Christian than either of them.1

§ 163. Calvin's Influence upon Great Britain.
CALVIN AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

Calvin first alludes to the English Reformation in a letter
to Farel, dated March 15, 1539, where he gives the following
judgment of Henry VIII. : " The King is only half wise. He
prohibits, under severe penalties, besides depriving them of
the ministry, the priests and bishops who enter upon matri
mony; he retains the daily masses; he wishes the seven
sacraments to remain as they are. In this way he has a
mutilated and torn gospel, and a church stuffed full as yet
with many toys and trifles. Then he does not suffer the
Scripture to circulate in the language of the common people
throughout the kingdom, and he has lately put forth a new
verdict by which he warns the people against the reading of
the Bible. He lately burned a worthy and learned man
[John Lambert] for denying the carnal presence of Christ in
the bread. Our friends, however, though sorely hurt by
atrocities of this kind, will not cease to have an eye to the
condition of his kingdom."

With the accession of Edward VI. he began to exercise a
direct influence ..upon the Anglican Reformation. He ad
dressed a long letter to the Protector Somerset, Oct. 22,
1548, and advised the introduction of instructive preaching
and strict discipline, the abolition of crying abuses, and the
drawing up of a summary of articles of faith, and a catechism
for children. Most of his suggestions were adopted. It is
remarkable that in this letter, as well as that to the king of
Poland, he makes no objection to the Episcopal form of gov-

1 See Creeds of Christendom, I. 502 sqq. and 508 sqq.

§ 163. CALVIN'S INFLUENCE UPON GKEAT BRITAIN. 817

ernment, nor to a liturgy. At the request of Archbishop
Cranmer, he wrote also letters to Edward VI., and dedicated
to him his Commentary on Isaiah. He sent them by a private
messenger who was introduced to the King by the Duke
of Somerset. His correspondence with Cranmer has been
already alluded to.1 As a consensus creed of Reformed
Churches was found to be impracticable, he encouraged the
archbishop to draw up the articles of religion for the Church
of England.

These articles which appeared first in 1553, and were after
wards reduced from forty-one to thirty-nine under Queen
Elizabeth, in 1563, show the influence of the Augsburg Con
fession in the doctrines of the Trinity, justification and the
Church, and the influence of Calvin in the doctrines of the
Eucharist, and of predestination, which, however, is stated
with wisdom and moderation (Art. XVIL), without repro
bation and preterition.2

During the reign of Queen Mary, many leading Protestants
fled to Geneva, and afterwards obtained high positions in the
Church under Queen Elizabeth. Among them were the
translators of the Geneva version of the Bible, which owes
much to Calvin and Beza, and continued to be the most
popular English version till the middle of the seventeenth
century, when it was superseded by the version of 1611.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth Calvin's theological
influence was supreme, and continued down to the time of
Archbishop Laud. His Institutes were translated soon after
the appearance of the last edition, and passed through six
editions in the life of the translator. They were the text
book in the universities, and had as great an authority as the
Sentences of Peter the Lombard, or the Summa of Thomas
Aquinas, in the Middle Ages. We have previously quoted
the high tributes of the " judicious " Hooker and Bishop

1 § 159, pp. 799 sq.

2 See Creeds of Christendom, vol. I. 613 sqq. ; 633 sqq.

818 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Sanderson to Calvin.1 Heylyn, the admirer and biographer
of Archbishop Laud, says that " Calvin's book of Institutes
was for the most part the foundation on which the young
divines of those times did build their studies." Hard wick,
speaking of the latter part of the Elizabethan period, asserts
that " during an interval of nearly thirty years, the more
extreme opinions of the school of Calvin, not excluding his
theory of irrespective reprobation, were predominant in
almost every town and parish." 2

The nine Lambeth Articles of 1595, and the Irish Articles
of Archbishop Ussher of 1615, give the strongest symbolical
expression to the Calvinistic doctrine of unconditional elec
tion arid reprobation, but lost their authority under the later
Stuarts.3

Calvin, however, always maintained his commanding posi
tion as a commentator among the scholars of the Anglican
Church. His influence revived in the evangelical party, and
his sense of the absolute dependence on divine grace for
comfort and strength found classical expression in some of
the best hymns of the English language, notably in Toplady's

"Rock of Ages cleft for me."
CALVIN AND THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.

Still greater and more lasting was Calvin's influence upon
Scotland. It extended over discipline and church polity as
well as doctrine.

The Presbyterian Church of Scotland, under the sole head
ship of Christ, is a daughter of the Reformed Church of
Geneva, but has far outgrown her mother in size and impor
tance, and is, upon the whole, the most flourishing of the
Reformed Churches in Europe, and not surpassed by any

1 See above, p. 286 sq.

2 A History of the Articles of Religion (1859), p. 167.

8 See above, p. 564, and Creeds of Christendom, I. 658 sqq.

§ 163. CALVIN'S INFLUENCE UPON GREAT BRITAIN. 819

denomination in general intelligence, liberality, and zeal for
the spread of Christianity at home and abroad.

The hero of the Scotch Reformation, though four years
older than Calvin, sat humbly at his feet and became more
Calvinistic than Calvin. John Knox, the Scot of the Scots,
as Luther was the German of the Germans, spent the five
years of his exile (1554-1559), during the reign of the
Bloody Mary, mostly at Geneva, and found there "the most
perfect school of Christ that ever was since the days of the
Apostles." 1 After that model he led the Scotch people,
with dauntless courage and energy, and the perfervidum
inyenium Scotorum, from mediaeval semi-barbarism into the
light of modern civilization, and acquired a name which,
next to those of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin, is the greatest
in the history of the Protestant Reformation.2

In the seventeenth century Scotch Presbyterianism and
English Puritanism combined to produce a second and more
radical reformation, and formulated the rigorous principles
of Puritanic Calvinism in doctrine, discipline, and worship.
The Westminster standards of 1647 have since governed the
Presbyterian, and, in part, also the Congregational or Inde
pendent, and the regular Baptist Churches of the British
Empire and the United States, with such modifications and
adaptations as the progress of theology and church life
demands.3

1 See above, § 110, p. 518.

2 Creeds of Christendom, I. 669-685, and the literature there given.

3 Ibid. I. 685-813.

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CLOSING SCENES IN CALVIN'S LIFE.

§ 164. Calvin's Last Days and Death.

CALVIN had labored in Geneva twenty-three years after
his second arrival, — that is, from September, 1541, till May
27, 1564,1 — when he was called to his rest in the prime
of manhood and usefulness, and in full possession of his
mental powers ; leaving behind him an able and worthy suc
cessor, a model Reformed Church based on the law of Moses
and the gospel of Christ ; a flourishing Academy, which was a
nursery of evangelical preachers for Switzerland and France,
and survives to this day; and a library of works from his
pen, which after more than three centuries are still a living
and moulding power.2

He continued his labors till the last year, writing, preach
ing, lecturing, attending the sessions of the Consistory and
the Venerable Company of pastors, entertaining and counsel
ling strangers from all parts of the Protestant world, and
corresponding in every direction. He did all this notwith
standing his accumulating physical maladies, as headaches,
asthma, dyspepsia, fever, gravel, and gout, which wore out
his delicate body, but could not break his mighty spirit.

When he was unable to walk he had himself transported
to church in a chair. On the 6th of February, 1564, he
preached his last sermon. On Easter day, the 2d of April,

1 In the same year (1564) Michelangelo died, and Shakespeare and Galileo
were born. Adding the two years of his first sojourn, from 1536 to 1538,
Calvin spent twenty-five years in Geneva.

2 He lived, says a Scotch divine, " somewhat less than fifty-five years, but
into that period the work of centuries was compressed." Tweedie, I.e., p. 57.

820

§ 164. CALVIN'S LAST DAYS AND DEATH. 821

he was for the last time carried to church and received the
sacrament from the hands of Beza.

On the 25th of April, he made his last will and testament.
It is a characteristic document, full of humility and gratitude
to God, acknowledging his own unworthiness, placing his
whole confidence in the free election of grace, and the
abounding merits of Christ, laying aside all controversy, and
looking forward to the unity and peace in heaven.1

Luther, defying all forms of law, begins his last will with
the words : " I am well known in heaven, on earth, and in
hell," and closes : " This wrote the notary of God and the
witness of his gospel, Dr. Martin Luther."

On the 26th of April, Calvin wished to see once more the
four Syndics and all the members of the Little Council in the
Council Hall, but the Senators in consideration of his health
offered to come to him. They proceeded to his house on the
27th in solemn silence. As they were assembled round him
he gathered all his strength and addressed them without in
terruption, like a patriarch, thanking them for their kindness
and devotion, asking their pardon for his occasional outbreaks
of violence and wrath, and exhorting them to persevere in
the pure doctrine and discipline of Christ. He moved them
to tears.2 In like manner, on the 28th of April, he addressed
all the ministers of Geneva whom he had invited to his house,
in words of solemn exhortation and affectionate regard. He
asked their pardon for any failings, and thanked them for their
faithful assistance. He grasped the hands of every one.
"They parted," says Beza, "with heavy hearts and tearful
eyes."3

1 Beza's Vita, iuOpera, XXI. pp. 162 sqq. (in Latin) ; Henry, III. p. 171 (in
French) ; translation in the next section.

2 See, besides the account of Beza, the entry in the Reg. du Conseil, April
27, Annal. XXI. 815.

3 See the D /.scours cV adieu aux metnbres du Petit Conseil, and the Discours
d' adieu aux ministres, in his Opera, Tom. IX. 887-890, in Beza's Vita, and in
the appendix to Bonnet's French Letters, Tom. II. 573. Comp. also Henry, III.
582 sqq. ; Stiihelin, II. 462-468. Translation in the next section.

822 THE KEFOKMATIOX IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

These were sublime scenes worthily described by an eye
witness, and represented by the art of a painter.1

On the 19th of May, two days before the pentecostal com
munion, Calvin invited the ministers of Geneva to his house
and caused himself to be carried from his bed-chamber into
the adjoining dining-room. Here he said to the company:
"This is the last time I shall meet you at table," — words
that made a sad impression on them. He then offered up a
prayer, took a little food, and conversed as cheerfully as was
possible under the circumstances. Before the repast was
quite finished he had himself carried back to his bed-room,
and on taking leave said, with a smiling countenance : " This
wall will not hinder my being present with you in spirit,
though absent in body."

From that time he never rose from his bed, but he con
tinued to dictate to his secretary.

Farel, then in his eightieth year, came all the way from
Neuchatel to bid him farewell, although Calvin had written
to him not to put himself to that trouble. He desired to die
in his place. Ten clays after Calvin's death, he wrote to FaTm
(June 6, 1564) : " Oh, why was not I taken away in his place,
while he might have been spared for many years of health to
the service of the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ ! Thanks
be to Him who gave me the exceeding grace to meet this
man and to hold him against his will in Geneva, where he has
labored and accomplished more than tongue can tell. In the
name of God, I then pressed him and pressed him again to
take upon himself a burden which appeared to him harder than
death, so that he at times asked me for God's sake to have
pity 011 him and to allow him to serve God in a manner which
suited his nature. But when he recognized the will of God,
he sacrificed his own will and accomplished more than was
expected from him, and surpassed not only others, but even
himself. Oh, what a glorious course has he happily finished ! "

1 Hornung's picture of Calvin on his death-bed, addressing the senators.

§ 164. CALVIN'S LAST DAYS AND DEATH. 823

Calvin spent his last days in almost continual prayer, and
in ejaculating comforting sentences of Scripture, mostly
from the Psalms. He suffered at times excruciating pains.
He was often heard to exclaim : " I mourn as a dove " (Isa.
38 : 14) ; " I was dumb, I opened not my mouth ; because
thou didst it " (Ps. 39:9); " Thou bruisest me, O Lord, but
it is enough for me that it is thy hand." His voice was
broken by asthma, but his eyes remained bright, and his mind
clear and strong to the last. He admitted all who wished
to see him, but requested that they should rather pray for
him than speak to him.

On the day of his death he spoke with less difficulty. He
fell peacefully asleep with the setting sun towards eight
o'clock, and entered into the rest of his Lord. "I had
just left him," says Beza, " a little before, and on receiving
intimation from the servants, immediately hastened to him
with one of the brethren. We found that he had already
died, and so very calmly, without any convulsion of his feet
or hands, that he did not even fetch a deeper sigh. He had
remained perfectly sensible, and was not entirely deprived of
utterance to his very last breath. Indeed, he looked much
more like one sleeping than dead." l

He had lived fifty-four years, ten months, and seventeen
days.

"Thus," continues Beza, his pupil and friend, "withdrew
into heaven, at the same time with the setting sun, that
most brilliant luminary, which was the lamp of the Church.
On the following night and day there was immense grief

1 The original entry in the Register of the Council of Geneva under date
"Saincdi, Mai 27, 1564," relative to the death of Calvin, is this: " Ce
iourd'htty environ halt heures du soir le sp. Ian Calvin est alle a U/'eii, sain et entier,
graces a Dieu, de sens et entendement." Under date of " Lundi, Mfti 29," the
succession of Beza to the place of Calvin is thus announced in the same Reg
ister : " De Beze succede a la place de Calvin. II aura la charge quil avoit oultre
ce quil a faire les lecons. Arreste quon lui/ bailie le garje qnavoit J/. Calvin. Et ait
reste quand se viendra ceans quon se contents quil soit assts an bane dabas et quon luii
presente la maison dudit Sr. Calvin sil tj veult al/er." Calvin's Opera, XXI. 815.

824 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

and lamentation in the whole city ; for the Republic had lost
its wisest citizen, the Church its faithful shepherd, the Acad
emy an incomparable teacher — all lamented the departure
of their common father and best comforter, next to God. A
multitude of citizens streamed to the death-chamber and
could scarcely be separated from the corpse. Among them
were several foreigners, as the distinguished Ambassador of
the Queen of England to France, who had come to Geneva
to make the acquaintance of the celebrated man, and now
wished to see his remains. At first all were admitted ; but as
the curiosity became excessive and might have given occasion
to calumnies of the enemies,1 his friends deemed it best on the
following morning, which was the Lord's Day, to wrap his
body in linen and to enclose it in a wooden cofnn, according
to custom. At two o'clock in the afternoon the remains were
carried to the common cemetery on Plain Palais (Planum
Palatiurn), followed by all the patricians, pastors, professors,
and teachers, and nearly the whole city in sincere mourning."2
Calvin had expressly forbidden all pomp at his funeral and
the erection of any monument over his grave. He wished to
be buried, like Moses, out of the reach of idolatry. This was
consistent with his theology, which humbles man and exalts
God.

1 What these calumnies were, is not stated ; they were first made public
by Bolsec fifteen years later (see Note below). Francis Junius, in his ani
madversions upon Bellarmin, says that he was at Geneva when Calvin closed
his life, but that he never saw, heard, knew, thought, or even dreamed of the
blasphemies and curses which the papists said lie uttered at his death.

2 " Pomeridiana vero secunda, sequentibus ftinus patriciis, unn cum pastoribus
professoribusque scholce omnibus totaque piene civitate non sine uberibus lacnjmis
prosequente elatus est, communique coemiterio, quod Planum Palatium vacant, nidla
penitus extraor dinar ia pompa nulloque addito cippo (sz'c enim mandaraf) conditus,
cui propterea, his versiculis parentavi." Then follow the Parentalia and a
description of Calvin's character and habits. In his French biography, which
is dated Aug. 19, 1564, Beza says that Calvin was buried "comme il I'avait
ordonne, au cemetiere commun appele Plein palais sans pompe ni appareil quelcon-
ques-la ou il gist auiourd'huy attendant la resurrection qu'il nous a enseigne'e et a si
constamment espere'e," etc. He closes both biographies with a list of Calvin's
works. Opera, XXL 47-50.

§ 164. CALVIN'S LAST DAYS AND DEATH. 825

Beza, however, wrote a suitable epitaph in Latin and
French, which he calls " Parentalia " (i.e. offering at the
funeral of a father) : —

" Shall honored Calvin to the dust return,
From whom e'en Virtue's self might learn ;
Shall he — of falling Rome the greatest dread,
By all the good bewailed, and now (tho' dead)
The terror of the vile — lie in so mean,
So small a tomb, where not his name is seen ?

Sweet Modesty, who still by Calvin's side
Walked while he lived, here laid him when he died.
0 happy tomb with such a tenant graced !
0 envied marble o'er his ashes placed ! "1

On the third centennial of the Reformation of Geneva, in
1835, a splendid memorial medal was struck, which on the
one side shows Calvin's likeness, with his name and dates of
birth and death ; on the other, Calvin's pulpit with the verse :
" He held fast to the invisible as if he saw Him " (Heb.
11 : 27), and the circular inscription : " Broken in body ;
Mighty in spirit; Victor by faith; the Reformer of the
Church ; the Pastor and Protector of Geneva." 2

At the third centenary of his death (1864), his friends in
Geneva, aided by gifts from foreign lands, erected to his

1 In his Latin Vita : —

" Romre mentis terror iUe maximus,
Quern mortuum litr/ent boni, horrescunt mail,
Ipsa a quo pot a it virtutem discere virtus,
Cur adeo exlguo ignotoque in cespite clausus

Cdlt'intis httetit, rogas f

Calvinum adsidtie comitata modestia vivum,
Hoc tumulo manibus condidit ipsa suis.
O te beatum cespitem tanto hospite !
O cui invidere cuncta possint marmora .' "

There are besides one Hebrew, ten Greek, two Latin, and three French
" Epitaphia in Calvinum scripta" in Beza's Poemata, 1597, and in Calvin's
Opera, vol. XXI. 169, 173-178. The three French sonnets are from Chan-
dieu, a pupil of Calvin.

2 On the obverse: Johannes Calvinns Natus Novioduni, 1509. Mortuus
Genevte, 1564. On the reverse : " // tint ferine cornme s'il eust veu celuy qui
est invisible" (Heb. 11:27}. Genev. Jnbil Ann., 1835. And the inscrip
tion: " Corpore fractns : Animo potens : Fide victor : Ecclesice Reformator : Gene-
vce Pastor et Tutamen." See Henrv, III. 592.

826 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

memory the " Salle de la Reformation," a noble building,
founded on the principles of the Evangelical Alliance, and
dedicated to the preaching of the pure gospel and the advo
cacy of every good cause.

The Reformed Churches of both hemispheres are the monu
ment of Calvin, more enduring than marble.

Zwingli, of all the Reformers, died first (1531), in the
prime of life, on the battlefield, with the words trembling on
his lips : " They can destroy the body, but not the soul."
The star of the Swiss Reformation went down with him, but
only to rise again.

Next followed Luther (1546). He, too, died away from
home, at Eisleben, his birthplace, disgusted with the disorders
of the times, weary of the world and of life, but holding fast
to the faith of the gospel, repeating the precious words :
" God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son,"
and, in the language of the 31st Psalm, committing his spirit
into the hands of his faithful God, who had redeemed him.

Melanchthon left this world at his own home (1560), like
Calvin ; his last and greatest sorrow was the dissensions in
the Church for which he could shed tears as copious as the
waters of the Elbe. He desired to die that he might be
delivered first of all from sin, and also from " the fury of
theologians." He found great comfort in the fifty-third
chapter of Isaiah, and the first, and seventeenth chapters of
John ; and when asked by his son-in-law (Peucer),- whether
he desired anything, he replied: "Nothing but heaven."

John Knox, the Calvin of Scotland, " who never feared
the face of man," survived his friend eight years (till 1572),
and found his last comfort likewise in the Psalms, the fifty-
third chapter of Isaiah, and the sacerdotal prayer of our
Saviour.

The providence of God, which rules and overrules the
movements of history, raised up worthy successors for the
Reformers, who faithfully preserved and carried forward

§ 164. CALVIN'S LAST DAYS AND DEATH. 827

their work : Bullinger for Zwingli, Melanchthon for Luther,
Beza for Calvin, Melville for Knox.

The extraordinary episcopal power which Calvin, owing
to his extraordinary talents and commanding character, had
exercised without interruption, ceased with his death. Beza
was elected his successor on the 29th of May, 1564, as " mod-
erateur " of the ecclesiastical affairs of Geneva, only for one
year.1 But he was annually re-elected till 1580, when he
felt unequal to carrying any longer the heavy burden of
duty. He was willing, however, to continue the correspond
ence with foreign Churches. He divided his untiring
activity between Switzerland and France, and exercised a
controlling influence on the progress of the Reformation in
those two countries. He saw a Huguenot prince, Henry IV.,
ascend the throne of France ; he lamented his abjuration
of the evangelical faith, but rejoiced over the Edict of Nantes
which gave legal existence to Protestantism ; and he carried,
as the last survivor of the noble race of the Reformers, the
ideas of the Reformation to the beginning of the seventeenth
century. His theology marks the transition from the broad
Calvinism of Calvin to the narrow, scholastic, and supralap-
sarian Calvinism of the next generation, which produced the
reaction of Arminianism not only in Holland and England,
but also in France and Geneva.

NOTE. A CALUMNY.

It is painful to notice that sectarian hatred and malice followed the Reform
ers to their death-beds. Fanatical Romanists represented Zwingli's heroic
death as a judgment of God, and invented the myths that (Ecolampadius
committed suicide and was carried off by the devil ; that Luther hung himself
by his handkerchief on the bed-post and emitted a horrible stench ; and that
Calvin died in despair.

The myth of Luther's suicide was soberly and malignantly repeated by an
ultramontane priest (Majunke, editor of the " Germania" in Berlin), and gave

1 He himself suggested a similar change in an address before the Vener
able Company of Pastors and Professors, June 2, 1564. Annales, in Opera,
XXI. 816.

828 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

rise to a lively controversy in 1890. It must be added, however, that learned
and honest Catholics indignantly protested against the calumny. (Cf. my
article, Did Luther commit Suicide? in "Magazine of Christian Literature,"
New York, for December, 1890.)

As to Calvin, it is quite probable that his body, broken by so many diseases,
soon showed signs of decay, which put a stop to the reception of strangers,
and may have given rise to some "calumnies," of which Beza vaguely speaks.
But it was not till fifteen years after his death, that Bolsec, the apostate monk,
fastened upon Calvin's youth an odious vice (see above, p. 302), and spread
the report that he died of a terrible malady, — that of being eaten by worms,
— witli which the just judgment of God destroys His enemies. He adds that
Calvin even invoked the devils and cursed- his studies and writings. (" //
mountt invoquant Aj.s diables, . . , j}fcme il maudissait Iheure qu'il avail jamais
etudie ft e'crit.") But he gives no authority, living or dead.

Audin (Life of Calcin, p. 532, Engl. transl.) repeats this infamous fabrica
tion with some variations and dramatic embellishments, on the alleged testi
mony of an unknown student, who, as he says, sneaked into the death-chamber,
lifted the black cloth from the face of Calvin and reported : " Calvinus in
desperatione furiens vitam obiit turpissimo et fcedissimo inorbo quern Deus rebellibus
et maledictis comminatus est, prius excruciatus et consumptus, quod ego verissime
attestari audeo, qui funestum et tragicum illtus exitum et exitium his meis oculis
prcesens aspexi. Joann. ffarennius, apnd Pet. Cutzenum!"

We regret to say that a Roman Catholic archbishop, Dr. Spalding, whose
work on the Reformation gives no evidence of any acquaintance with the
writings of Calvin or Beza, retails the slanders of Bolsec and Audin, and
informs American readers that Calvin was " a very Xero " and " a monster
of impurity and iniquity ! " (See above, § 110, p. 520.)

Calvin's whole life and writings, his testament, and dying words to the
senators and ministers of Geneva, and the minute account of his death by his
friend Beza, who was with him till his last moments, ought to be sufficient to
convince even the most incredulous who is not incurably blinded by bigotry.

§ 165. Calvin's Last Will, and Fareivells.
CALVIN'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT, April 25, 1564.

In BEZA'S Vita Calv., French and Latin; in Opera, XX. 298 and XXI. 162.
Henry gives the French text, III., Beilage, 171 sqq. The English trans
lation is by Henry Beveridge, Edinburgh, 1844.

"In the name of God, Amen. On the 25th day of April, in the year of
our Lord 1564, I, Peter Chenalat, citizen and notary of Geneva, witness and
declare that I was called upon by that admirable man, John Calvin, minister
of the Word of God in this Church of Geneva, and a citizen of the same
State, who, being sick in body, but of sound mind, told me that it was his
intention to execute his testament, and explain the nature of his last will, and
begged me to receive it, and to write it down as he should rehearse and
dictate it with his tongue. This I declare that I immediately did, writing

§ 165. CALVIN'S LAST WILL, AND FAREWELLS. 829

down word for word as he was pleased to dictate and rehearse ; and that
I have in no respect added to or subtracted from his words, but have followed
the form dictated by himself.

"'In the name of the Lord, Amen. I, John Calvin, minister of the Word
of God in this Church of Geneva, being afflicted and oppressed with various
diseases, which easily induce me to believe that the Lord God has determined
shortly to call me away out of this world, have resolved to make my testament,
and commit my last will to writing in the manner following : First of all,
I give thanks to God, that taking mercy on me, whom He had created and
placed in this world, He not only delivered me out of the deep darkness of
idolatry in which I was plunged, that He might bring me into the light of His
gospel, and make me a partaker in the doctrine of salvation, of which I was
most unworthy ; and not only, with the same mercy and benignity, kindly and
graciously bore with my faults and my sins, for which, however, I deserved
to be rejected by Him and exterminated, but also vouchsafed me such clem
ency and kindness that He has deigned to use my assistance in preaching and
promulgating the truth of His gospel. And I testify and declare, that it is
my intention to spend what yet remains of my life in the same faith and
religion which He has delivered to me by His gospel; and that I have no
other defence or refuge for salvation than His gratuitous adoption, on which
alone my salvation depends. With my whole soul I embrace the mercy
which He has exercised towards me through Jesus Christ, atoning for my sins
with the merits of His death and passion, that in this way He might satisfy for
all my crimes and faults, and blot them from His remembrance. I testify
also and declare, that I suppliantly beg of Him, that He may be pleased so to
wash and purify me in the blood which my Sovereign Redeemer has shed for
the sins of the human race, that under His shadow I may be able to stand
at the judgment-seat. I likewise declare, that, according to the measure of
grace and goodness which the Lord hath employed towards me, I have
endeavored, both in my sermons and also in my writings and commentaries,
to preach His Word purely and chastely, and faithfully to interpret His
sacred Scriptures. I also testify and declare, that, in all the contentions and
disputations in which I have been engaged with the enemies of the gospel,
I have used no impostures, no wicked and sophistical devices, but have acted
candidly and sincerely in defending the truth. But, woe is me ! my ardor
and zeal (if indeed worthy of the name) have been so careless and languid,
that I confess I have failed innumerable times to execute my office properly,
and had not He, of His boundless goodness, assisted me, all that zeal had
been fleeting and vain. Nay, I even acknowledge, that if the same goodness
had not assisted me, those mental endowments which the Lord bestowed upon
me would, at His judgment-seat, prove me more and more guilty of sin and
sloth. For all these reasons, I testify and declare that I trust to no other
security for my salvation than this, and this only, viz. that as God is the
Father of mercy, He will show Himself such a Father to me, who acknowl
edge myself to be a miserable sinner. As to what remains, I wish that, after
my departure out of this life, my body be committed to the earth (after the
form and manner which is used in this Church and city), till the day of a

830 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

happ}' resurrection arrive. As to the slender patrimony which God has
bestowed upon me, and of which I have determined to dispose in this will
and testament, I appoint Anthony Calvin, my very dear brother, my heir,
but in the way of honor only, giving to him for his OAvn the silver cup which
I received as a present from Varanius, and with which I desire he will be
contented. Everything else belonging to my succession I give him in trust,
begging he will at his death leave it to his children. To the Boys' School
I bequeath out of my succession ten gold pieces ; as many to poor strangers ;
and as many to Joanna, the daughter of Charles Constans, and myself by
affinity. To Samuel and John, the sons of my brother, I bequeath, to be
paid by him at his death, each four hundred gold pieces ; and to Anna, and
Susanna, and Dorothy, his daughters, each three hundred gold pieces; to
David, their brother, in reprehension of his juvenile levity and petulance.,
I leave only twenty-five gold pieces. This is the amount of the whole patri
mony and goods which the Lord has bestowed on me, as far as I can estimate,
setting a value both on my library and movables, and all my domestic uten
sils, and, generally, my whole means and effects ; but should they produce
a larger sum, I wish the surplus to be divided proportionally among all the
sons and daughters of my brother, not excluding David, if, through the good
ness of God, he shall have returned to good behavior. But should the whole
exceed the above-mentioned sum, I believe it will be no great matter, espe
cially after my debts are paid, the doing of which I have carefully committed
to my said brother, having confidence in his faith and good-will ; for which
reason I will and appoint him executor of this my testament, and along with
him my distinguished friend, Lawrence Normand, giving power to them to
make out an inventory of my effects, without being obliged to comply with
the strict forms of law. I empower them also to sell my movables, that they
may turn them into money, and execute my will above written, and explained
and dictated by me, John Calvin, on this 25th day of April, in the year 1564.' l
"After I, the aforesaid notary, had written the above testament, the
aforesaid John Calvin immediately confirmed it with his usual subscription
and handwriting. On the following day, which was the 26th day of April
of same year, the same distinguished man, Calvin, ordered me to be sent for,
and along with me, Theodore Beza, Raymond Chauvet, Michael Cop, Lewis
Enoch, Nicholas Colladon, and James Bordese, ministers and preachers of
the Word of God in this Church of Geneva, and likewise the distinguished
Henry Scrimger, Professor of Arts, all citizens of Geneva, and in presence
of them all, testified and declared that he had dictated to me this his instru
ment in the form above written ; and, at the same time, he ordered me to
read it in their hearing, as having been called for that purpose. This I
declare I did articulately, and with clear voice. And after it was so read,
he testified and declared that it was his last will, which he desired to be rati-

1 A part of Calvin's furniture belonged to the Republic of Geneva, as is
proved by the inventory preserved in the archives. His books were pur
chased after his death by the Council. In spite of his poverty he could not
escape the charge of avarice. See below, p. 838.

§ 165. CALVIN'S LAST WILL, AND FAREWELLS. 831

fied. In testimony and confirmation whereof, he requested them all to
subscribe said testament with their own hands. This was immediately done
by them, month and year above written, at Geneva, in the street commonly
called Canon Street, and at the dwelling-place of said testator. In faith and
testimony of which I have written the foresaid testament, and subscribed it
with my own hand, and sealed it with the common seal of our supreme
magistracy.

" PETER CPENALAT."

CALVIN'S FAREWELL TO THE SYNDICS AND SENATORS OF GENEVA,
April 27, 1564.

From BEZA'S Vita Calvini. The Latin text in Opera, XXI. 164 sqq. The French
text in vol. IX. 887-890. Comp. Eeg. du Conseil, fol. 38, in Annales, XXI.
815. Translated by Henry Beveridge, Esq., for " The Calvin Translation
Society," 1844 (Calvin's Tracts, vol. I. Ixxxix-xciii).

"This testament being executed, Calvin sent an intimation to the four
syndics, and all the senators, that, before his departure out of life, he was
desirous once more to address them all in the Senate house, to which he
hoped he might be carried on the following day. The senators replied that
they would rather come to him, and begged that he would consider the state
of his health. On the following day, when the whole Senate had come to him
in a body, after mutual salutations, and he had begged pardon for their
having come to him when he ought rather to have gone to them, first premis
ing that he had long desired this interview with them, but had put it off until
he should have a surer presentiment of his decease, he proceeded thus : —

" ' Honored Lords, — I thank you exceedingly for having conferred so
many honors on one who plainly deserved nothing of the kind, and for having
so often borne patiently with my very numerous infirmities. This I have
always regarded as the strongest proof of your singular good-will toward me.
And though in the discharge of my duty I have had various battles to fight,
and various insults to endure, because to these every man, even the most
excellent, must be subjected, I know and acknowledge that none of these
things happened through your fault ; and I earnestly entreat you that if, in
anything, I have not done as I ought, you will attribute it to the want of
ability rather than of will; for I can truly declare that I have sincerely
studied the interest of your Republic. Though I have not discharged my
duty fully, I have always, to the best of my ability, consulted for the public
good ; and did I not acknowledge that the Lord, on His part, hath sometimes
made my labors profitable, I should lay myself open to a charge of dissimu
lation. But this I beg of you, again and again, that you will be pleased to
excuse me for having performed so little in public and in private, compared
with what I ought to have done. I also certainly acknowledge, that on
another account also I am highly indebted to you, viz. your having borne
patiently with my vehemence, which was sometimes carried to excess ; my
eins, in this respect, I trust, have been pardoned by God also. But in regard

832 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

to the doctrine which I have delivered in your hearing, I declare that the
Word of God, intrusted to me, I have taught, not rashly nor uncertainly, but
purely and sincerely ; as well knowing that His wrath was otherwise impend
ing on my head, as I am certain that my labors in teaching were not displeas
ing to Him. And this I testify the more willingly before God, and before
you all, because I have no doubt whatever that Satan, according to his wont,
will stir up wicked, fickle, and giddy men, to corrupt the pure doctrine which
you have heard of me.'

" Then referring to the great blessings with which the Lord had favored
them, ' I,' says he, ' am the best witness from how many and how great dan
gers the hand of Almighty God hath delivered you. You see, moreover, what
your present situation is. Therefore, whether in prosperity or adversity, have
this, I pray you, always present before your eyes, that it is He alone who
establishes kings and states, and on that account wishes men to worship Him.
Kemember how David declared that he had fallen when he was in the enjoy
ment of profound peace, and assuredly would never have risen again, had not
God, in His singular goodness, stretched out His hand to help him. What,
then, will be the case with such diminutive mortals as we are, if it was so
with him who was so strong and powerful? You have need of great humble
ness of mind, that you may walk carefully, setting God always before you,
and leaning only on His protection ; assured, as you have often already expe
rienced, that, by His assistance, you will stand strong, although your safety
and security hang, as it were, by a slender thread. Therefore, if prosperity
is given you, beware, I pray you, of being puffed up as the wicked are, and
rather humbly give thanks to God. But if adversity befalls you, and death
surrounds you on every side, still hope in Him who even raises the dead.
Kay, consider that you are then especially tried by God, that you may learn
more and more to have respect to Him only. But if you are desirous that this
republic may be preserved in its strength, be particularly on your guard
against allowing the sacred throne on which He hath placed you to be' polluted.
For He alone is the supreme God, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, who
will give honor to those by whom He is honored, but will cast down the de-
spisers. Worship Him, therefore, according to His precepts ; and study this
more and more, for we are always very far from doing what it is our duty to
do. I know the disposition and character of each of you, and I know that
you need exhortation. Even among those who excel, there is not one who is
not deficient in many things. Let every one examine himself, and wherein
he sees himself to be defective, let him ask of the Lord. We see how much
iniquity prevails in the counsels of this world. Some are cold; others, negli
gent of the public good, give their whole attention to their own affairs ; others
indulge their own private affections ; others use not the excellent gifts of God
as is meet ; others ostentatiously display themselves, and, from overweening
confidence, insist that all their opinions shall be approved of by others. I
admonish the old not to envy their younger brethren, whom they may see
adorned, by God's goodness, with some superior gifts. The younger, again,
I admonish to conduct themselves with modesty, keeping far aloof from all
haughtiness of mind. Let no one give disturbance to his neighbor, but let

§ 165. CALVIN'S LAST WILL, AND FAREWELLS. 833

every one shun deceit and all that bitterness of feeling which, in the adminis
tration of the Republic, has led many away from the right path. These
things you will avoid if each keeps within his own sphere, and all conduct
themselves with good faith in the department which has been intrusted to
them. In the decision of civil causes let there be no place for partiality or
hatred; let no one pervert justice by oblique artifices; let no one, by his
recommendations, prevent the laws from having full effect ; let no one depart
from what is just and good. Should any one feel tempted by some sinister
affection, let him firmly resist it, having respect to Him from whom he
received his station, and supplicating the assistance of His Holy Spirit.

" ' Finally, I again entreat you to pardon my infirmities, which I acknowl
edge and confess before God and His angels, and also before you, my much
respected lords.'

" Having thus spoken, and prayed to Almighty God that He would crown
them more and more with His gifts, and guide them by His Holy Spirit, for
the safety of the whole Republic, giving his right hand to each, he left them
in sorrow and tears, all feeling as if they were taking a last farewell of their
common parent."

CALVIN'S FAREWELL TO THE MINISTERS OF GENEVA, April 28, 1564.

From BEZA'S Vita Calvini. The Latin text in Opera, XXL 166 sq. Transla
tion by Henry Beveridge for " The Calvin Translation Society," Edin
burgh, 1844 (I. xciii), from the Latin text. There is another report, in
French, by minister Jean Pinaut, dated May 1, which is fuller as regards
Calvin's persecutions, and the confession of his infirmities, which always
displeased him and for which he asks forgiveness. It also makes grate
ful mention of Farel, Viret, and Beza, and an unpleasant allusion to
Bern, which always more feared than loved Calvin. It is printed in
Opera, vol. IX. 891, 892, and in the Letters of John Calvin by JULES
BONNET, transl. by Gilchrist, vol. IV. 372-377.

" On the 28th of April, when all of us in the ministry of Geneva had gone
to him at his request, he said : —

"' Brethren, after I am dead, persist in this work, and be not dispirited; for
the Lord will save this Republic and Church from the threats of the enemy.
Let dissension be far away from you, and embrace each other with mutual love.
Think again and again what you owe to this Church in which the Lord hath
placed you, and let nothing induce you to quit it. It will, indeed, be easy for
some who are weary of it to slink away, but they will find, to their experience,
that the Lord cannot be deceived. When I first came to this city, the gospel
was, indeed, preached, but matters were in the greatest confusion, as if Chris
tianity had consisted in nothing else than the throwing down of images ; and
there were not a few wicked men from whom I suffered the greatest indigni
ties ; but the Lord our God so confirmed me, who am by no means natur
ally bold (I say what is true), that I succumbed to none of their attempts.
I afterwards returned thither from Strassburg in obedience to my calling, but

834 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

with an unwilling mind, because I thought I should prove unfruitful. For
not knowing what the Lord had determined, I saw nothing before me but
numbers of the greatest difficulties. But proceeding in this work, I at length
perceived that the Lord had truly blessed my labors. Do you also persist in
this vocation, and maintain the established order ; at the same time, make it
your endeavor to keep the people in obedience to the doctrine ; for there are
some wicked and contumacious persons. Matters, as you see, are tolerably
settled. The more guilty, therefore, will you be before God, if they go to
wreck through your indolence. But I declare, brethren, that I have lived
with you in the closest bonds of true and sincere affection, and now, in like
manner, part from you. But if, while under this disease, you have experi
enced any degree of peevishness from me, I beg your pardon, and heartily
thank you, that when I was sick, you have borne the burden imposed upon
you.'

"When he had thus spoken, he shook hands with each of us. We, with
most sorrowful hearts, and certainly not unmoistened eyes, departed from
him."

Beza modestly omits Calvin's reference to himself which is as follows :
" Quant a nostre estat interieur, vous avez esleu Monsieur de Beze pour tenir ma
place. Hegardez de le soulager, car la charge est grande et a de la peine, en telle
sorte qu'il faudroit qu'il fust accable soubs le fardeau. Mais regardez a le sup
porter. De luy, ie s$ay qu'il a bon vouloir et fera ce qu'il pourra." Pinaut's
report, in Calv. Opera, IX. 894.

§ 166. Calvin's Personal Character and Habits.

Calvin is one of those characters that command respect
and admiration rather than affection, and forbid familiar
approach, but gain upon closer acquaintance. The better he
is known, the more he is admired and esteemed. Those who
judge of his character from his conduct in the case of Serve-
tus, and of his theology from the " decretum horribile" see
the spots on the sun, but not the sun itself. Taking into
account all his failings, he must be reckoned as one of the
greatest and best of men whom God raised up in the history
of Christianity.

He has been called by competent judges of different creeds
and schools, " the theologian " par excellence, " the Aristotle
of the Reformation," " the Thomas Aquinas of the Reformed
Church," "the Lycurgus of a Christian democracy," " the
Pope of Geneva." He has been compared, as a church ruler,
to Gregory VII. and to Innocent III. The sceptical Renan

§ 166. CALVIN'S PERSONAL CHARACTER. 835

even, who entirely dissents from his theology, calls him " the
most Christian man of his age." Such a combination of
theoretic and practical pre-eminence is without a parallel in
history. But he was also an intolerant inquisitor and perse
cutor, and his hands are stained with the blood of a heretic.1
Take these characteristics together, and you have the whole
Calvin ; omit one or the other of them, and you do him in
justice. He will ever command admiration and even rever
ence, but can never be popular among the masses. No
pilgrimages will be made to his grave. The fourth centen
nial of his birth, in 1909, is not likely to be celebrated with
such enthusiasm as Luther's was in 1883, and Zwingli's in
1884. But the impression he made on the Swiss, French,
Dutch, and especially on the Anglo-Saxon race in Great
Britain and America, can never be erased.2

Calvin's bodily presence, like that of St. Paul, was weak.
His earthly tent scarcely covered his mighty spirit. He was
of middle stature, dark complexion, thin, pale, emaciated, and
in feeble health; but he had a finely chiseled face, a well-
formed mouth, pointed beard, black hair, a prominent nose, a
lofty forehead, and flaming eyes which kept their lustre to

1 His enemies in Geneva even started the proverb, if we are to believe
the untrustworthy Baudouin : " Better with Beza in hell than with Calvin in
heaven."

2 See the collection of remarkable tributes in § 68, pp. 270 sqq. I will only
add two more from Dr. Baur and Dr. Mohler, the great historians who were
colleagues and antagonists, the champions, indeed, of opposite creeds in one of
the most important theological controversies of the nineteenth century. The
Protestant Baur, in his Kirchengeschichte (IV. 374), calls Calvin a man " von sel-
tener Gele.hr samkeit, feiner, vielseitiger Bildunq, scharfem, durchdringendem Geiste,
kraftigem, aber strengem Charakter, vollkommen wiirdig, den iibrigen Hduptern der
Reformation zur Seite zu stehen, an Schdrfe des Geistes zum Theil ihnen noch tiber-
legen." The Roman Catholic Mohler, the author of the Symbolik, which caused
a great sensation in its day, says in his posthumous Kirchengeschichte (III.
189) : " Calvin besass sehr viel Scharfsinn und eine ausnehmende Seredtsamkeil,
imd icar weit gelehrter als alle iibriqen Reformatoren, so dass Lehren, die bei einem
andern abscheulich gewesen wtiren, aus seinem Munde wohl Ming en ; " but he adds :
" Zu bedauern aber ist, dass eine so grosse geistige Kraft im Dienste des Irrthums

836 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

the last. He seemed to be all bone and nerve. He looked
in death, Beza says, like one who was asleep. A command
ing intellect and will shone through the frail body. There
are several portraits of him ; the best is the oil painting in
the University Library of Geneva, which presents him in
academic dress and in the attitude of teaching, with the
mouth open, one hand laid upon the Bible, the other raised.1

He calls himself timid and pusillanimous by nature ; but
his courage rose with danger, and his strength was perfected
in weakness. He belonged to that class of persons who dread
danger from a distance, but are fearless in its presence. In
his conflict with the Libertines he did not yield an inch, and
more than once exposed his life. He was plain, orderly, and
methodical in his habits and tastes, scrupulously neat in his
dress, intemperately temperate, and unreasonably abstemious.
For many years he took only one meal a day, and allowed
himself too little sleep.

Calvin's intellectual endowments were of the highest order
and thoroughly disciplined: a retentive memory, quick per
ception, acute understanding, penetrating reason, sound judg
ment, complete command of language. He had the classical
culture of the Renaissance, without its pedantry and moral
weakness. He made it tributary to theology and piety. He
was not equal to Augustin and Luther as a creative genius
and originator of new ideas, but he surpassed them both and
all his contemporaries as a scholar, as a polished and eloquent
writer, as a systematic and logical thinker, and as an organ
izer and disciplinarian. His talents, we may say, rose to the

1 It is reproduced on p. 256. Mr. Theophile Dufour, the librarian, assured
me in 1886 that it is the most authentic portrait. Professor Diodati, a former
librarian, wrote to Dr. Henry (III. P. I. Preface, p. vii) : " Quant an portrait
que Von voit a noire bibliotheque, il a toujours passe' pour authentique etjidele. Nos
peintres s'accordent a reconnaitre qidl est bien de Ve'poque de Calvin et qu'il est peint
d\me maniere remarqiiable. On I'a souvent attribue a Holbein ; mais cette opinion
n'est pas constatee. Ce qne I'on pent dire c'est qu'on y retrouve sa maniere. En
I e'tndiant attentivement on lui trouve un air de ve'rite'frappant."

§ 166. CALVIN'S PERSONAL CHARACTER. 837

full height of genius. His mind was cast in the mould of
Paul, not in that of John. He had no mystic vein, and little
imagination. He never forgot anything pertaining to his
duty; he recognized persons whom he had but once seen
many years previously. He spoke very much as he wrote,
with clearness, precision, purity, and force, and equally well
in Latin and French. He never wrote a dull line. His
judgment was always clear and solid, and so exact, that, as
Beza remarks, it often appeared like prophecy. His advice
was always sound and useful. His eloquence was logic set
on fire. But he lacked the power of illustration, which is
often, before a popular audience, more effective in an orator
than the closest argument.

His moral and religious character was grounded in the fear
of God, which is " the beginning of wisdom." Severe against
others, he was most severe against himself. He resembled a
Hebrew prophet. He may be called a Christian Elijah. His
symbol was a hand offering the sacrifice of a burning heart
to God. The Council of Geneva were impressed with " the
great majesty " of his character.1 This significant expres
sion accounts for his overawing power over his many ene
mies in Geneva, who might easily have crushed him at any
time. His constant and sole aim was the glory of God, and
the reformation of the Church. In his eyes, God alone was
great, man but a fleeting shadow. Man, he said, must be
nothing, that God in Christ may be everything. He was
always guided by a strict sense of duty, even in the punish
ment of Servetus. In the preface to the last edition of his
Institutes (1559), he says : " I have the testimony of my own
conscience, of angels, and of God himself, that since I under
took the office of a teacher in the Church, I have had no other
object in view than to profit the Church by maintaining the

1 " Dieu lui avait imprimg un charactere d'une si grande majeste." Registres
June 8, 1564. Grenus, Fragments Biograpluques.

838 THE [REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

pure doctrine of godliness ; yet I suppose there is no man more
slandered or calumniated than myself." 1

Riches and honors had no charms for him. He soared far
above filthy lucre and worldly ambition. His only ambition
was that pure and holy ambition to serve God to the best of
his ability. He steadily refused an increase of salary, and

1 He meets these calumnies in a letter to Christopher Piperin, Oct. 18, 1555
(Opera, XV. 825 sq.), from which I quote the following passage : " When I
hear that I am everywhere so foully defamed, I have not such iron nerves as
not to be stung with pain. But it is no slight consolation to me that your
self and many other servants of Christ and pious worshippers of God sympa
thize with me in my injuries. . . . Why should I worry honest people with
my zeal for vindicating my own reputation ? Did there exist a greater neces
sity for it, having entreated their indulgence, I might lay my defence before
them. But the scurrilous calumnies with which malignant men bespatter me
are too unfounded and too silly to require any labored refutation on my part.
The authors of them would tax me with self-importance, and laugh at me as
being too anxiously concerned for my character. One example of these
falsehoods is that immense sum of money which you mention. Everybody
knows how frugally I live in my own house. Every one sees that I am at no
expense for the splendor of my dress. It is well known everywhere that my
only brother is far from being rich, and that the little which he has, he
acquired without any influence of mine. Where, then, was that hidden treas
ure dug up ? But they openly give out that I have robbed the poor. Well,
this charge also, these most slanderous of men will be compelled to confess,
was falsely got up without any grounds. I have never had the handling of
one farthing of the money which charitable people have bestowed on the
poor. About eight years ago, a man of rank [David de Busanton, a refugee ;
see Calvin's letter to Viret, Aug. 17, 1545, Opera, XII. 139] died in my house
who had deposited upwards of two thousand crowns with me, and without
demanding one scrap of writing to prove the deposit. When I perceived that
hU life was in danger, though he wished to intrust that sum to my management,
I refused to undertake so responsible a charge. I contrived, however, that
eight hundred crowns should be sent to Strassburg to relieve the wants of the
exiles. By my advice he chose men above suspicion to distribute the remain
der of the sum. When he wished to appoint me one of their number, to
which the others made no objections, I refused ; but I see what nettles my
enemies. As they form an estimate of my character from their own, they
feel convinced that I must amass wherever I find a good opportunity. But
if during my lifetime I do not escape the reputation of being rich, death will
at last vindicate my character from this imputation." See his testament,
p. 829. Nevertheless Bolsec (ch. XI.) unscrupulously repeated and exagger
ated the calumny about the misappropriation of the legacy of two thousand
crowns. Comp. the editorial notes in Opera, XV. 825 and 826.

§ 166. CALVIN'S PERSONAL CHARACTER. 839

frequently also presents of every description, except for the
poor and the refugees, whom he always had at heart, and aided
to the extent of his means. He left only two hundred and
fifty gold crowns, or, if we include the value of his furniture
and library, about three hundred crowns, which he bequeathed
to his younger brother, Antoine, and his children, except ten
crowns to the schools, ten to the hospital for poor refugees,
and ten to the daughter of a cousin. When Cardinal Sadolet
passed through Geneva in disguise (about 1547), he was sur
prised to find that the Reformer lived in a plain house instead
of an episcopal palace with a retinue of servants, and himself
opened the door.1 When Pope Pius IV. heard of his death he
paid him this tribute : " The strength of that heretic consisted
in this, — that money never had the slightest charm for him.
If I had such servants, my dominions would extend from sea
to sea." In this respect all the Reformers were true succes
sors of the Apostles. They were poor, but made many rich.

Calvin had defects which were partly the shadow of his
virtues. He was passionate, prone to anger, censorious, im
patient of contradiction, intolerant towards Romanists and
heretics, somewhat austere and morose, and not without a
trace of vindictiveness. He confessed in a letter to Bucer,
and on his death-bed, that he found it difficult to tame " the
wild beast of his wrath," and he humbly asked forgiveness
for his weakness. He thanked the senators for their patience
with his often " excessive vehemence." His intolerance
sprang from the intensity of his convictions and his zeal for
the truth. It unfortunately culminated in the tragedy of
Servetus, which must be deplored and condemned, although
justified by the laws and the public opinion in his age.
Tolerance is a modern virtue.

Calvin used frequently contemptuous and uncharitable
language against his opponents in his polemical writings,

1 This incident is related by Drelincourt, Bungener, and others, and
believed in Geneva.

840 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

which cannot be defended, but he never condescended to
coarse and vulgar abuse, like so many of his contemporaries.1

He has often been charged with coldness and want of
domestic and social affection, but very unjustly. The chap
ter on his marriage and home life, and his letters on the death
of his wife and only child show the contrary.2 The charge
is a mistaken inference from his gloomy doctrine of eternal
reprobation ; but this was repulsive to his own feelings, else
he would not have called it " a horrible decree." Experience
teaches that even at this day the severest Calvinism is not
seldom found connected with a sweet and amiable Christian
temper. He was grave, dignified, and reserved, and kept
strangers at a respectful distance ; but he was, as Beza ob
serves, cheerful in society and tolerant of those vices which
spring from the natural infirmity of men. He treated his
friends as his equals, with courtesy and manly frankness, but
also with affectionate kindness. And they all bear testimony
to this fact, and were as true and devoted to him as he was to
them. The French martyrs wrote to him letters of gratitude
for having fortified them to endure prison and torture with
patience and resignation.3 " He obtained," says Guizot, " the
devoted affection of the best men and the esteem of all, with
out ever seeking to please them." " He possessed," says
Tweedie, " the secret and inexplicable power of binding men
to him by ties that nothing but sin or death could sever.
They treasured up every word that dropped from his lips."

Among his most faithful friends were many of the best
men and women of his age, of different character and dispo
sition, such as Farel, Viret, Beza, Bucer, Grynseus, Bullinger,
Knox, Melanchthon, Queen Marguerite, and the Duchess

1 Comp. above, § 118, p. 595.

2 See above, § 92, pp. 413-424.

3 Michelet (XL 95) : " Les martyrs, a leur dernier jour, sefaisaient une conso
lation, un devoir d'e'crire a Calvin. Us n'auraient pas quitte la vie sans remercier
celui dont la parole les avait mene's a la mort. Leurs lettres, respectueuses, nobles
et douces, arrachant les larmes."

§ 166. CALVIN'S PERSONAL CHARACTER. 841

Rene*e. His large correspondence is a noble monument to
his heart as well as his intellect, and is a sufficient refuta
tion of all calumnies. How tender is his reference to his de
parted friend Melanchthon, notwithstanding their difference
of opinion on predestination and free-will : " It is to thee, I
appeal, who now livest with Christ in the bosom of God,
where thou waitest for us till we be gathered with thee to
a holy rest. A hundred times hast thou said, when, wearied
with thy labors and oppressed by thy troubles, thou reposedst
thy head familiarly on my breast, 4 Would that I could die
in this bosom ! ' Since then I have a thousand times wished
that it had happened to us to be together." How noble is his
admonition to Bulliriger, when Luther made his last furious
attack upon the Zwinglians and the Ziirichers (1544), not to
forget " how great a man Luther is and by what extraordi
nary gifts he excels." And how touching is his farewell
letter to his old friend Farel (May 2, 1564) : " Farewell, my
best and truest brother ! And since it is God's will that you
should survive me in this world, live mindful of our friend
ship, of which, as it was useful to the Church of God, the
fruits await us in heaven. Pray, do not fatigue yourself on
my account. It is with difficulty that I draw my breath, and
I expect that every moment will be my last. It is enough
that I live and die for Christ, who is the reward of his fol
lowers both in life and in death. Again, farewell, with the
brethren."

Calvin has also unjustly been charged with insensibility to
the beauties of nature and art. It is true we seek in vain for
specific allusions to the earthly paradise in which he lived, —
the lovely shores of Lake Leman, the murmur of the Rhone,
the snowy grandeur of the monarch of mountains in Cha-
mounix. But the writings of the other Reformers are equally
bare of such allusions, and the beauties of Switzerland were
not properly appreciated till towards the close of the eigh
teenth century, when Haller, Goethe, and Schiller directed

842 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

attention to them. Calvin, however, had a lively sense of
the wonders of creation and expressed it more than once.
uLet us not disdain," he says, "to receive a pious delight
from the works of God, which everywhere present themselves
to view in this very beautiful theatre of the world " ; and
he points out that " God has wonderfully adorned heaven
and earth with the utmost possible abundance, variety, and
beauty, like a large and splendid mansion, most exquisitely
and copiously furnished, and exhibited in man the master
piece of his works by distinguishing him with such splendid
beauty and such numerous and great privileges." l

He had a taste for music and poetry, like Luther and
Zwingli. He introduced, in Strassburg and Geneva, con
gregational singing, which he described as "an excellent
method of kindling the heart and making it burn with great
ardor in prayer," and which has ever since been a most
important part of worship in the Reformed Churches. He
composed also a few poetic versifications of Psalms, and a
sweet hymn to the Saviour, to whose service and glory his
whole life was consecrated.

NOTE.

Calvin's " Salutation a lesus Christ " was discovered by Felix Bovet of
Neuchatel in an old Genevese prayer-book of 1545 (Calvin's Liturgy), and
published, together with eleven other poems (mostly translations of Psalms),
by the Strassburg editors of Calvin's works in 1867. (See vol. VI. 223 and
Prolegg. XVIII. sq.) It reveals a poetic vein and a devotional fervor and
tenderness which one could hardly expect from so severe a logician
and polemic. A German translation was made by Dr. E. Stahelin of Basel,
and an English translation by Mrs. Henry B. Smith of New York, and
published in Schaff' s Christ in Song, 1868. (" I greet Thee, who my sure

1 Institutes, bk. I. ch. XIV. 20. This whole chapter on Creation is replete
with admiration for the beauty and order of God's universe. " Were I desir
ous," he says (21), "of pursuing the subject to its full extent, there would be
no end; since there are as many miracles of divine power, as many monu
ments of divine goodness, as many proofs of divine wisdom as there are
species of things in the world, and even as there are individual things either
great or small."

§ 166. CALVIN'S PERSONAL CHARACTER. 843

Redeemer art." New York ed. p. 678 ; London ed. p. 549.) We give it here
in the original old French : —

" le te salue, mon certain Redempteur,
Ma vrayejianc' et mon seul Salvateur,
Qui tant de labeur,
D'ennuys et de douleur
As endure' pour moy :
Oste de noz cueurs
Toutes vaines langueurs,
Fol soucy et esmoy.

" Tu es le Hoy misericordieux ;
Puissant par tout et regnant en tous lieux ;
Vueille done regner
En nous, et dominer
Sur nous entierement,
Nous illuminer,
Havyr et nous mener
A ton haut Firmament.

*' Tu es la vie par laquelle vivons,
Toute sustanc' et toutejbrc' avons.'
Donne nous confort
Contre la dure mort,
Que ne la craignons point,
Et sans desconfort
La passons d'un cueur fort
Quand ce viendra au point.

** Tu es la vraye et parfaite douceurt
Sans amertume, despit ne rigueur :
Fay nous savourer,
Aymer et adorer,
Ta tresdouce bont€;
Fay nous desirer,
Et tousiours demeurer
En ta douce unite'.

teNostre esperanc' en autre n'est qu'en toy,
Sur ta promesse est fondee nostrefoy '
Vueilles augmenter,
Ayder et conforter
Nostre espoir tellementt
Que bien surmonter
Nous puissions, et porter
Tout mal patiemment.

844 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

"A toy cryons comme povres banys,
Enfans d'Eve pleins de maux infinis :
A toy souspirons,
Ge7nissons et plorons,
En la valle'e de plours ;
Pardon requerons
Et salut desirons,
Nous confessans pecheurs.

" Or avant dong, nostre Mediateur,
Nostre advocat et propiciateur,
Tourne tes doux yeux
Icy en ces bas lieux,
Et nous vueille monstrer
Le haut Dieu des Dieux,
Et aveq toy Ys deux
Nousfaire tous entrer.

" 0 debonnair', o pitoyabl' et doux,
Des ames saintes amyabl' espoux,
Seigneur lesus Christ,
Encontre L'antechrist
Remply de cruaute",
Donne nous L'esprit
De suyvir ton escript
En vraye verity."

CHAPTER XIX.
THEODORE BEZA.

Sources : BEZA'S Correspondence, mostly imprinted, but many letters are given
in the Beilagen zu BAUM'S Theodor Beza (see below), and in HERMINJARD'S
Correspondance des reformateurs dans les pays de langue francaise (vols. VI.
sqq.) ; and his published works (the list to the number of ninety is given
in the article " Beze, Theodore de," in HAAG, La France Protestante, 2d
ed. by Bordier, vol. II., cols. 520-540). By far the most important of
them are, his Vita J. Calvini, best ed. in Calvin's Opera, XXI., and his
Tractationes theologicce (1582). He also had much to do with the Histoire
eccle'siastique des eglises reformers au royaume de France, best ed. by Baum,
Cunitz, and Rodolphe Reuss (the son of Edward Reuss, the °ditor of
Calvin), Paris, 1883-1889. 3 vols. small quarto.

ANTOINE DE LA FAYE : De vita et obitu Th. Bezce, Geneva, 1606. — FRIEDRICH
CHRISTOPH SCHLOSSER : Leben des Theodor de Beza und des Peter Martyr
Vermili, Heidelberg, 1809. — *JOHANN WILIIELM BAUM: Theodor Beza
nach handschriftlichen Quellen dargestellt, Leipzig, I. Theil, 1843, with
Beilagen to bks. I. and II. II. Theil, 1851, with Anhang die Beilagen
enthaltend, 1852 (unfortunately this masterly book only extends to
1563). — * HEINRICH HEPPE : Theodor Beza. Leben und ausgewdhlte
Schriften, Elberfeld, 1861 (contains the whole life, but is inferior in
style to Baum). — Art. Beza by BORDIER in La France Protestante.

JEROME BOLSEC : Histoire de la vie, moeurs, doctrine, et de'portements de Theodore
de Beze, Paris, 1582; republished by an unnamed Roman Catholic in
Geneva, 1835, along with Bolsec's " Life of Calvin," to counteract the
effect of the celebration of the third centennial of the Reformation. It
has no historical value, but is a malignant libel, like his so-called "Life
of Calvin," as this specimen shows : " Beze, toute sa jeunesse, a ete un tres-
de'bauche et dissolu, sodomite, adultere et suborneur defemmes mariees [Bolsec
elsewhere asserts that Claudine Denosse was married when Beza seduced
her], larron, trompeur, homicide de sa propre ge'niture, traitre, vanteur, cause
et instigateur d'infinis meurtres, guerres, invasions, brulemens de villes, palais
et maisons ; de saccagemens de temples, et infinies autres mines et malheurs "
(ed. 1835, p. 188).

Much use has been made of the allusions to Beza in HENRY M. BAIRD'S Rise

of the Huguenots (New York, 1879), and Huguenots and Henry of Navarre
(1886), also of the article on " Beze, Theodore de," in Haag, La France

845

846 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Protestante, mentioned above. See also Principal CUNNINGHAM: The
Reformers, Edinburgh, 1862 ; " Calvin and Beza," pp. 345-413 (theological
and controversial).

§ 167. Life of Beza to his Conversion.

THE history of the Swiss Reformation would not be com
plete without an account of Calvin's faithful friend and suc
cessor, Theodore Beza, who carried on his work in Geneva
and France to the beginning of the seventeenth century.

In the ancient duchy of Burgundy is the village of Vezelay.
It was once the scene of a great gathering, for to it in 1146
came Louis VII. and his vassals, to whom Bernard preached
the duty of rescuing the Holy Sepulchre from the infidels so
convincingly, that the king and his knights then and there
took the oath to become crusaders. Four and forty years
later (1190), in the same place, Philip Augustus of France
and Richard the Lionheart of England, under similar plead
ings, made the same vow.

The village clusters around the castle in which, in 1519,
lived the rich Pierre de Besze,1 the bailiff of the county, a
descendant of one of the proudest families of the duchy. His
wife was Marie Bourdelot, beloved and renowned for her
intelligence and her charities. They had already two sons
and four daughters, when on the 24th of June in that year,
1519, another son was born who was destined to render the
name illustrious to the end of time. This son was christened
Theodore. Thus the future reformer was of gentle birth -
a fact which was recognized when in after years he pleaded
for the Protestant faith before kings, and princes, and mem
bers of the nobility and of the fashionable world.

But the providential preparation for the part he was des
tined to play extended far beyond the conditions of his birth.

1 This was the old spelling as appears from Beza's signature. The modern
French spell it Beze, the English and Germans Beza, which is the Latin
form.

847

848 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Gentle breeding followed. His mother died when he was
not quite three years old, but already was he a stranger to
his father's house ; for one of his uncles, Nicolas de Besze,
seigneur de Cette et de Chalonne, and a councillor in the Par
liament of Paris, had taken him with him to Paris and adopted
him, so great was the love he bore him, and when the time
came he was put under the best masters whom money and
influence could secure. The boy was precocious, and his uncle
delighted in his progress. One day at table he entertained
a guest from Orleans, who was a member of the royal council.
The conversation turned upon the future of Theodore, where
upon the friend commended Melchior Wolmar, the famous
Greek scholar at Orleans, who was also the teacher of Calvin,
as the best person to educate the lad. The uncle listened
attentively, and sent Theodore thither and secured him admis
sion into Wolmar's family. This was in 1528, when Theodore
was only nine years old. With Wolmar he lived till 1535,
first at Orleans and then at Bourges, and doubtless learned
much from him. Part of this learning was not at all to the
mind of his father or his uncle Claudius, the Abbot of 'the
Cistercian monastery of Froimont in the diocese of Beauvais,
who, on the death of his brother Nicolas, on Nov. 29, 1532,
had undertaken the pious duty of superintending the boy's
education ; for Wolmar, in common with many sober-minded
scholars of that day, had broken with the Roman Church and
taken up the new ideas inculcated by Luther, and which were
beginning to make a stir in France. Indeed, it was his known
adherence to these views which compelled his flight to Ger
many in the year 1535. Thus the future reformer, in his
tenderest and most susceptible years, had impressed upon him
the doctrine of justification by faith in the righteousness of
Christ, heard much of the corrupt state of the dominant
Church, and was witness to the efforts of that Church to put
to death those who differed from her teaching.

Nothing was further from the mind of the father and

§ 167. LIFE OF BEZA TO HIS CONVERSION. 849

uncle, and also from that of Theodore himself, than that he
should be an advocate of the new views. The career marked
out for him was that of law, in which his uncle Nicolas
had been so distinguished. To this end he was sent to the
University of Orleans. Although very young, he attracted
attention. He joined the German nation — for the students
in universities then were divided into factions, according
to their ancestry, and Burgundy was accounted part of Ger
many — and rapidly became a favorite. But he did not give
himself up to mere good-fellowship. He studied hard, and
on Aug. 11, 1539, attained with honor the degree of licentiate
of the law.

His education being thus advanced, Beza, now twenty
years old, came to Paris, there, as his father desired, to
prosecute further law studies ; but his reluctance to such
a course was pronounced and invincible, so much so that
at length he won his uncle to his side, and was allowed by
his father to pursue those literary studies which afterwards
accrued so richly to the Reformed Church ; but at the time
he had no inkling of his subsequent career. By his uncle
Claudius' influence the possessor of two benefices which
yielded a handsome income, and enriched further by his
brother's death in 1541, well-introduced and well-connected,
a scholar, a wit, a poet, handsome, affable, amiable, he lived
on equal terms with the best Parisian society, and was one
of the acknowledged leaders.1

1 The Jesuit Maimbourg, a declared enemy, in his Histoire du Calvinisme
(Paris, 1682, 18mo, p. 217), has thus described him at this time: "Homme bien
fait, de belle faille, ayant le visage fort agre'able, Pair fin et de'licat, et toutes les
manieres d'un homme du monde qui le faisoient estimer des Grands et surtout des
dames, ausquelles il prenoit grand soin de ne pas de'plaire. Pour I'esprit, on ne
pent nier qu'il ne I'eust tres-beau, vff, aise, subtil, enjoue et poli, ayant pris peine
de le cultiver par I'e'tude des belles lettres, et particulierement de la poe'sie, oit il excel-
loit en franqois et en latin, sqachant avec cela un pen de philosophic et de droit qu'il
avoit appris aux e'coles d'Orle'ans." "He was well made, of good size, having
a very agreeable countenance, a refined and delicate air, and the carriage of
a man of the world, who had won the esteem of the great, and especially

850 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

That he did not escape contamination he has himself
confessed, but that he sinned grossly he has as plainly
denied.1 In 1544 he made in the presence of two friends,
Laurent de Norman die and Jean Crespin, eminent jurists,
an irregular alliance with Claudine Denosse,2 a burgher's
daughter, and at the time declared that when circumstances
favored he would publicly marry her. His motive in making
a secret marriage was his desire to hold on to his benefices.
But he was really attached to the woman, and was faithful
to her, as she was to him ; and there was nothing in their
relationship which would have seriously compromised him
with the company in which he lived. The fact that they lived
together happily for forty years shows that they followed the
leading of sincere affection, and not a passing fancy. In 1548
he published his famous collection of poems — Juvenilia. This
gave him the rank of the first Latin poet of his day, and his
ears were full of praises. He dedicated his book to Wolmar.
It did not occur to him that anybody would ever censure
him for his poems, least of all on moral grounds ; but this is
precisely what happened. Prurient minds have read between
his lines what he never intended to put there, and imagined
offences of which he was not guilty even in thought.3 And
what made the case blacker against him was his subsequent
Protestantism. Because he became a leader of the Reformed
Church, free-thinkers and livers and the adherents of the old
faith have brought up against him the fact that in the days
of his worldly and luxurious life he had used their language,
and been as pagan and impure as they.

of the ladies, whom he took much pains not to displease. It cannot be
denied that he was very attractive, lively, easy, subtle, playful, and polished,
having cultivated his mind by reading literature, particularly poetry, wherein
he himself excelled both in French and Latin, mingling with it a little phi
losophy and law which he had taken in at Orleans."

1 Baum, I. 60-63.

2 Anciently spelled Desnosze.

3 Thus they have taken the characters mentioned in them as actual,
whereas they are purely imaginary.

§ 168. BEZA AT LAUSANNE. 851

The book had scarcely begun its career, and the praises
had scarcely begun to be received, ere Beza fell seriously
sick. Sobered by his gaze into the eyes of death, his con
science rebuked him for his duplicity in receiving ecclesias
tical benefices as if he was a faithful son of the Church,
whereas he was at heart a Protestant ; for his cowardice in
cloaking his real opinions ; for his negligence in not keeping
the promise he had voluntarily made to the woman he had
secretly married four years before ; and for the general condi
tion of his private and public life. The teachings of Wolmar
came back to him, This world seemed very hollow; its
praises and honors very cloying. The call to a higher, purer,
nobler life was heard, and he obeyed ; and, although only
convalescent, leaving father and fatherland, riches and
honors, he fled from the city of his triumphs and his trials,
and, taking Claudine Denosse with him, crossed the border
into Switzerland,1 and on Oct. 23, 1548, entered the city
of Geneva. He was doubtless attracted thither because his
intimate friend Jean Crespin, one of the witnesses of his
secret alliance, was living there, likewise a fugitive for relig
ion's sake — and there lived John Calvin.

From being the poet of the Renaissance, bright, witty,
free, Beza, from the hour he joined the Reformed Church,
became a leader in all its affairs and one of the chiefs of
Protestantism.2

§ 168. Beza at Lausanne and as a Delegate to the Grerman

Princes.

Beza's earliest business after greeting Calvin was to marry
in church Claudine Denosse. Then he looked around for

1 He adopted the alias of Thibaud de May. So Heppe, p. 20.

2 For having left France because he was a Protestant he was condemned
by the Parliament of Paris to death, and all his property confiscated to the
State (May 31, 1550). By special royal mandate his property was restored
to him in 1564, although he was at the time at the head of the Reformed
Church of France. Cf. Baum, I. 66 sq.

852 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

an occupation that would support him. He considered for a
time going into the printing business with Crespin, but on
his return from a visit to Wolmar at Tubingen he yielded to
the persuasions of Pierre Viret, who entertained him as he
was passing through Lausanne, and on Nov. 6, 1549, became
professor of Greek in the Academy there,1 and entered upon
a course of great usefulness and influence. He showed his
zeal as well as biblical learning by giving public lectures on
the Epistle to the Romans and on the Epistles of Peter ; and
that he still was a poet, and that, too, of the Renaissance,
only in the religious and not usual sense (of regeneration
and not renascence), by continuing the translation of the
Psalms begun by Clement Marot, and by publishing a drama,
classically constructed, on. the Sacrifice of Abraham.2 All
these performances were in the French language.

While at Lausanne, Beza was taken sick with the plague.
Calvin in writing of this to Far el, under date of June 15,
1551, thus pays his tribute to the character of Beza : " I would
not be a man if I did not return his love who loves me more
than a brother and reveres me as a father: but I am still
more concerned at the loss the church would suffer if in the
midst of his career he should be suddenly removed by death,
for I saw in him a man whose lovely spirit, noble, pure man
ners, and open-mindedness endeared him to all the righteous.
I hope, however, that he will be given back to us in answer
to our prayers."

Lausanne was then governed by Bern. It was therefore
particularly interested in Bern's alliance with Geneva, and
when this was renewed in 1557, after it had been suffered to
lapse a year, Beza considered it very providential. In the
spring of that year, 1557, persecution broke out against the
neighboring Waldenses, and on nomination of the German

1 His colleague in the Latin chair was the distinguished Fran9ois Hotman
(Latin, Hotomanus), who afterwards founded a law school at Geneva.

2 It was performed by the students of the Lausanne academy and elsewhere
and translated into several languages.

§ 168. BEZA AT LAUSANNE. 853

clergy and with special permission of Bern, Beza, and Farel
began a series of visits through Switzerland and upon the
Protestant princes of Germany in the interest of the perse
cuted. The desire was to stir up the Protestants to unite
in an appeal to the king of France. Beza was then thirty-
eight years old and had been for eight years a successful
teacher and preacher. He was therefore of mature years and
established reputation. But what rendered the choice of
him still more an ideal one was his aristocratic bearing and
his familiarity with court life. He accepted his appointment
with alacrity, as a man enters upon a course particularly
suited to him. Thus Beza started out upon the first of the
many journeys which furnished such unique and invaluable
services to the cause of French Protestantism.

The two delegates made a favorable impression everywhere.
The Lutherans especially were pleased with them, although
at first inclined to look askance upon two such avowed ad
mirers and followers of Calvin. But when they had returned
full of rejoicing that they had accomplished their design and
that the Protestant princes and cantons would unite in peti
tioning the French king on behalf of the persecuted Wal-
denses, albeit to small effect, alas ! they were called to
sharp account because at Goppingen on May 14, 1557, they
had defined their doctrine of the Eucharist in terms which
emphasized the points of agreement and passed by those of
disagreement.1 This was in the interest of peace. They
rightly felt that it would be shameful to shipwreck their
Christian attempt upon the shoals of barren controversy.
But the odium tlieologicum compelled their home friends
to charge them with disloyalty to the truth ! Calvin, how
ever, raised his voice in defence of Beza's conduct, and the
strife of tongues quickly ceased.

How little Beza had suffered in general reputation, or at

1 See the text in Bauni, I. 405-409.

854 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

least in the eyes of the powerful Calvin, was almost imme
diately manifest.

On the evening of the 4th of September, 1557, three or four
hundred Protestants in Paris who had quietly assembled in
the Rue St. Jaques to celebrate the Lord's Supper were set
upon by a mob, and amid insults and injuries haled to prison.
Their fate deeply stirred the Protestants everywhere, and
Beza with some companions was again sent to the Protestant
cantons and princes to invoke their aid as before, and because
the princes were quicker at promising than performance he
went again the next year. But Henry II. paid small atten
tion to the note of the Protestant powers.

§ 169. Beza at Greneva.

In 1558 the city of Geneva established a high school, and
Beza was called, at Calvin's suggestion, to the Greek profes
sorship. Much to the regret of Viret and his colleagues, he
accepted. He was influenced by various considerations, the
chief of which were his desire to escape from the trouble
caused by Viret's establishment of the Genevan church dis
cipline, which had led to a falling out with Bern, Lausanne's
ruler, and from the embarrassments still resulting from his
well-meant attempts at union among the* Protestants, and
probably still more by his desire to labor at the side of Calvin,
whom he so greatly revered and whose doctrines he so vigor
ously and honestly defended. He was honorably dismissed
to Geneva and warmly commended to the confidence of the
brethren there. When on June 5, 1559, the Academy was
opened, he was installed as rector. Thus, in his fortieth year,
he entered upon his final place of residence and upon his
final labors. Henceforward he was inseparable from the
work of Calvin, and however far and frequently he might
go from Geneva, it was there that he left his heart.

On Calvin's nomination, Beza was admitted to citizenship
at Geneva, and shortly afterwards (March 17, 1559) he sue-

§ 169. BEZA AT GENEVA. 855

ceeded to the pastorate of one of the city churches.1 But
each new labor imposed upon him only demonstrated his
capacity and zeal. The Academy and the congregation flour
ished under his assiduous care, and Calvin found his new ally
simply invaluable. There was soon a fresh call upon his
diplomacy. Anne du Bourg, president of the Parliament of
Paris, boldly avowed his Protestantism before Henry II., and
was arrested. When the news reached Calvin, he despatched
Beza to the Elector Palatine, Frederick III., to interest this
powerful prince. The result of his mission was a call on
Du Bourg from the Elector to become professor of law in
his university at Heidelberg. But the intervention availed
nothing. Du Bourg was tried, and executed Dec. 23, 1559.

Shortly after his return, Beza was sent forth again, July
20, 1560. The occasion was, however, quite different. The
Prince de Conde, shorn of his power by the Guises, had fled
to Nerac. He desired to attach to the Protestant party his
brother, Antoine de Bourbon- Venddme, king of Navarre.
Calvin had already, by letter, made some impression on the
irresolute and fickle king, but Conde induced his brother to
send for Beza, who, with his eloquence and his courtly bear
ing, quite captivated the king, who declared that he would
never hear the mass again, but would do all he could to
advance the Protestant cause. His zeal was, however, of very
short duration ; for no sooner did his brother, the cardinal of
Bourbon, arrive, than he and his queen, Jeanne d'Albret, who
afterwards was a sincere convert to Protestantism, heard mass
in the convent of the Cordeliers at Ne*rac. Beza, seeing that
Antoine would not hold out, but was certain to fall into the
power of the Catholic party, quietly left him, Oct. 17, and
after many dangers reached Geneva early in November. The
journey had taken three weeks, and had, for the most part,
to be performed at night.2

1 Pierre Viret had followed him to Geneva, Jan. 13, 1559, and was one of
his colleagues in ecclesiastical service.

2 Baum, II. 122. Unfortunately Beza's account of it is lost.

856 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

§ 170. Beza at the Colloquy of Poissy.1

Beza was now considered by all the French Reformed as
their most distinguished orator, and next to Calvin their most
celebrated theologian. This commanding position he had
attained by many able services. When, therefore, the queen-
mother Catherine determined to hold a discussion between
the French prelates arid the most learned Protestant minis
ters, the Parisian pastors, seconded by the Prince of Conde,
the Admiral Coligny, and the king of Navarre, implored
Beza to come, and to him was committed the leadership. At
first he declined. But in answer to renewed and more urgent
appeals he came, and on Aug. 22, 1561, he was again in Paris,
for the first time since his precipitate flight, in October, 1548
— thirteen years before. The preliminary meeting was in the
famous chateau of St. Germain-en-Laye, on the Seine, a few
miles below Paris. There, on Aug. 23, he made his appear
ance. On the evening of that day he was summoned to the
apartments of the king of Navarre, and in the presence of
the queen-mother and other persons of the highest rank, he
had his first encounter in debate with Cardinal Lorraine.
The subject was transubstantiation. The Cardinal was no
match for Beza, and after a weak defence, yielded the floor,
saying that the doctrine should not stand in the way of a
reconciliation. On Tuesday, Sept. 9, 1561, the parties to the
Colloquy assembled in the nuns' refectory at Poissy, some
three miles away. It was soon evident that there was
not to be any real debate. The Catholic party had all the
advantages and acted as sole judges.2 It was a foregone

1 Baum, II. 168-419, Heppe, 104-148, Baird (Rise of the Huguenots}, I.
493-577, give full, accurate, and interesting accounts of the famous Colloquy
of Poissy, to which the reader is referred. Only the briefest mention can be
made in this place.

2 The entirely proper request of the Protestants that the bishops should
not be at the same time parties and judges, that the questions in debate should
be decided solely by the Word of God in the originals, and that the minutes

§ 170. BEZA AT THE COLLOQUY OF POISSY. 857

conclusion that the verdict was to be given to the Catholic
party, whatever the arguments might be. Nevertheless, Beza
and his associates went through the form of a debate, and
courageously held their ground. In characteristic fashion
they first knelt, and Beza prayed, commencing his prayer
with the confession of sins used in the Genevan liturgy of
Calvin. He then addressed the assembly upon the points of
agreement and of disagreement between them, and was quietly
listened to until he made the assertion that the Body of Christ
was as far removed from the bread of the Eucharist as the
heavens are from the earth. Then the prelates broke out
with the cry u BlaspJiemavit ! blasphemavit ! " (" he has blas
phemed"), and for a while there was much confusion. Beza
had followed the obnoxious expression with a remark which
was intended to break its force, affirming th« spiritual pres
ence of Christ in the Eucharist ; but the noise had prevented
its being heard. Instead, however, of yielding to the clamor
the queen-mother insisted that Beza should be heard out,
and he finished his speech. The Huguenots claimed the
victory, but the Roman Catholics spread the story that
they had been easily and decidedly beaten. The prelates
requested the points in writing, and it was not till Sept. 16
that they made a reply. The Cardinal of Lorraine was the
spokesman. No opportunity was given the Protestants to
rejoin, as they were ready to do at once.

On Sept. 24 a third conference was held, but in the small
chamber of the prioress, not in the large refectory, and a fourth
in the same place on Sept. 26. But the Colloquy had degen
erated into a rambling debate, and its utterly unprofitable
character was manifest to all. The queen-mother did, it is

should not be accepted unless signed by the secretary on each side, had been
refused. With studied indignity the Protestant ministers, who numbered
twelve, all distinguished men, were required to appear as culprits brought
to the bar, for they were separated by a railing from the prelates and
courtiers.

858 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

true, flatter herself that there might be an agreement, and
zealously labored to produce it. But in vain. Her expec
tation really showed how shallow were her religious ideas.

Beza stayed at St. Germain until the beginning of Novem
ber,1 and then, worn out, and threatened with a serious ill
ness, he sought rest in Paris. There he had a visit from his
oldest step-brother, and also a pressing and affectionate letter
from his father, who had learned to what honor his son had
come, forgave him for his persistence in heresy, and expressed
a great desire to see him. Beza started for Vezelay, but on
the way met a courier with the intelligence that the Prot
estants required his instant attendance to help them at a
crisis in their affairs, because acts of violence against them
had taken place in all parts of France. And Beza, ever sub
ordinating private to public duties, turned back to Paris,
and no further opportunity of seeing his father ever came to
him.2

§ 171. Beza as the Counsellor of the Huguenot Leaders.

On the 20th of December an assembly of notables, includ
ing representatives from each of the parliaments, the princes
of the blood, and members of the Council, had been called
to suggest some decree of at least a provisional nature
upon the religious question. It was January, 1562, before
it convened. It enacted on Jan. 17 the famous law known
as the "Edict of January," whereby the Huguenots were
recognized as having certain rights, chief of which was
that of assembling for worship by day outside of the walled
cities.3 The churches which they had seized were, however,
not restored to them, and they were forbidden to build
others.

1 His leave of absence from Geneva had been much extended in answer to
the request of the king of Navarre, Conde, and Coligny. Heppe, 161.

2 Cf. the touching account of these events in Heppe, 158-61.
s Baird, I. 576 sq.

§ 171. BEZA AS THE COUNSELLOR. 859

Beza counselled the Protestants to accept the edict, al
though it gave them very much less than their rights ; and
they obeyed.

On Jan. 27, 1562, he was again at St. Germain by command
of Catherine, to argue with Catholic theologians upon the
use of images and the worship of saints. As before, the gulf
between Protestants and Roman Catholics stood revealed,
and the conference did no good except to show that the
Protestants had some reason, at all events, for their opinions.
Yet they did entertain hopes of maintaining the peace, when
the news that on March 1 the Duke of Guise had massa
cred hundreds of defenceless Protestants, in a barn at Vassy,
while engaged in peaceful worship, spread consternation far
and wide. The court was then at Monceaux, and there Beza
appeared as deputy of the Protestants of Paris to demand of
the king of Navarre punishment for this odious violation of
the Edict of January. The queen-mother received the de
mand graciously and promised compliance, but the king
responded roughly and laid all the blame on the Protestants,
who, he declared, had excited the attack by throwing stones
at the Duke of Guise. " Well then," said Beza, " he should
have punished only those who did the throwing." And then
he added these memorable words : " Sire, it is in truth the
lot of the Church of God, in whose name I am speaking, to
endure blows, and not to strike them. But also may it please
you to remember that it is an anvil that has worn out many
hammers." l

Civil war now broke out, Conde* on one side and the Guises
on the other; and Beza, although so unwilling, was fairly
involved in it.

In a lull in the strife the third national Synod of the

1 " Sire, c'est a la ve'ritf a I'lZglise de Dieu, au nom de laquelle je parle, d'en-
durer les coups, et non pas d'en donner. Mais aussi vous plaira-t-il vous souvenir
que c'est une enclume qui a use'beaucoup de marteaux." Quoted by Baird, II. 28;
c/. Baum, II. 567.

860 THE KEFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Reformed Church was held at Orleans on April 25. Beza
was present, and his translation of the Psalms was sung upon
the streets.

On May 20, 1562, the Prince of Conde sent a memorable
answer to the petition of the Guises that King Charles would
take active measures to extirpate heresy in his domains. The
reply was really the work of Beza, and is a masterpiece of
argument a"nd eloquence.1

The necessity of securing allies induced Cond6 to send
Beza to Germany and Switzerland. He went first to S trass-
burg, then to Basel, and at length on Friday, Sept. 4, he
arrived at Geneva. How earnest must have been the conver
sations between him and Calvin ! How glad must his many
friends have been to welcome back home the leader of French
Protestantism !

Beza resumed his former mode of life. Two weeks passed
and he had just begun to feel himself able in peace to carry
out his plans for the Academy and the Genevan churches,
when a messenger riding post haste from D'Andelot, a brother
of Coligiiy, and his fellow-deputy to the German princes,
announced the fresh outbreak of trouble in France. Beza
was at first inclined to stay at home, mistrusting the necessity
of his presence among the Huguenot troops, but Calvin urged
him to go, and so he went, and for the next seven months
Beza was with the Huguenot army. He acted as almoner
and treasurer. He followed Cond£ to the battle of Dreux,
Dec. 19, 1562, at which Conde was taken prisoner. It was
made a matter of reproach that he took an active part in the
battle. He did indeed ride in the front rank, but he denied
that he struck a blow. He was in citizen's dress. He then
retired to Normandy with Coligny. The expected help from
England did not arrive, and it was determined to send him to

1 Baum says (II. 642) that it may with confidence be placed by the side of
the most eloquent passages in the French language. A judgment in which
Baird (II. 61) concurs.

§ 171. BEZA AS THE COUNSELLOR. 861

London. So utterly sick was Beza of the military life that
he seriously meditated going directly back to Geneva from
London. But the Pacification Edict of March 12, 1563,
freed Cond£ and ended hostilities, and Beza did not make
his contemplated English journey.

This unexpected turn in his affairs was brought about by
an untoward event. On the 18th of February, 1563, the
Duke of Guise was assassinated by a poor fanatical Hugue
not wretch, who, under torture, accused Beza of having
instigated him by promising him Paradise and a high place
among the saints if he died for his deed.1 The calumny was
afterwards denied by the man who had made it, but Beza
considered himself obligated to make a formal reply. He
called upon all who had heard him to declare if he had ever
favored any other than strictly legal measures against the
late Duke. And as for his alleged promise, he said that he
was too good a Bible student to declare that any one could
win Paradise by works.2

Peace having come, Beza was at liberty to return home.
But his heart was heavy because the affairs in France were
in a very unsatisfactory condition. Still, there was nothing
to be accomplished by staying, and so, loaded down with
thanks and praises from the leading Huguenots for his inval
uable services in the field, in the camp, at the council-board,
and in the religious assembly, surrounded with the leaders of
the Huguenot army and the preachers and nobles, amid shouts
and sighs, Beza, on Tuesday, March 30, 1563, took his de
parture from Orleans. On the Sunday before, he had preached
his farewell sermon, in which he expressed his disappointment
that the Edict of Pacification had brought the Huguenots so
little advantage.3

On his way back he passed through Vezelay. His father

1 Baum, II. 711 ; Baird, II. 105.

2 Baum, II. 714, 716.
8 Baird, II. 118.

862 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

was dead, but there must have been many associations of
childhood which endeared the place to him. Here he learned
that his wife was safe at Strassburg with Conde's mother-in-
law. Bending his steps thither, he rejoined her, and together
they made the journey home, where they arrived May 5,
1563.1

As they journeyed they knew that they were in perpetual
danger, but they did not know that some of their enemies
were looking for them to turn towards the Netherlands. But
so it was. In June of that year a rumor was circulated at
Brussels that there had been a quarrel between him and
Calvin, and that in consequence he would not return to
Geneva. Margaret of Parma, then regent of the Netherlands,
thought to do a splendid deed, and gave orders that if he
entered her domains he was to be taken, dead or alive, and
offered to his capturer or murderer a thousand florins. But
there having been no such break, Beza, on the contrary,
took the shortest practicable route for Geneva.2

§ 172. Beza as the Successor of Calvin, down to 1586.

Beza received his warmest welcome from Calvin, who was
already under the shadow of death. There was no one else

1 Referring to the entire length of service in France, Baum says : " He had
been absent twenty-two months. They were the most wearing and the most
perilous, but also^the most fruitful months in his life. For during that period,
with courage and dignity, with learning and acuteness, with penetrating force
and charming eloquence, he had before princes and kings preached the gospel
and exalted the name of Christ. As the representation in this work has
abundantly shown, amid incessant struggles against unwise or faint-hearted
friends, against cunning and powerful foes, many times and most daringly at
the risk of his own life, he developed into one of the great leaders who
procured for the Reformed Church of France its soul-liberty, which, though,
it is true, less than it claimed should have been given, was still secured to it
by law." With these words Baum (II. 731) closes his authoritative but,
alas, unfinished work upon Beza.

2 Baird, II. 388. In the regent's proclamation, Beza was described as
" homme de moienne stature, ayant barbe a demy blanche, et le visage hault et
large."

§ 172. BEZA AS THE SUCCESSOR OF CALVIN. 868

whom the great Reformer could so confidentially take into
his counsels. And as the time of his departure drew near,
he relied more and more upon him. Their friendship was
based upon respect and affection and was never disturbed.
The relation of the two men resembled that between
Zwingli and Bullinger, and was most useful to the
Church.

It was of course perfectly understood by Beza that he was
to be Calvin's successor, so the year which passed before
Calvin died was a year of preparation for the new duties. At
last the time came, and Calvin passed away. Beza conducted
the funeral, and shortly after wrote his classical life of his
patron, friend, and predecessor. The city Council elected him
Calvin's successor ; the Venerable Company of Pastors, as the
presbytery of Geneva called itself, elected him their modera
tor, and continued him in this office till 1580, when he com
pelled them to allow him to retire. So he continued Calvin's
leadership in city and church affairs. He preached and lec
tured to the students. He received the fugitives from France,
and the visitors from other lands. He gave his advice and
opinion upon the innumerable things which turned up daily.
He conducted an enormous correspondence. And every now
and then he had to enter the field of controversy and repel
"heretics," like Ochino and Castellio, or Lutherans like
Andrea and Selnecker.

Nor could this leadership have fallen into better hands.
For Beza, although inferior to Calvin in theological acquire
ments and acumen, was his superior in knowledge and
experience of court life and in grace of manner. He was
eminently fitted to be the host of the Protestant scholars
and martyrs, who flocked or fled to Geneva from every
quarter. And so the theological school became under him
the most famous of its kind in the world, and the little
republican city was the virtual capital of Continental
Protestantism.

864 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

Incessantly occupied as he was by public affairs, but
bearing his burdens with courage and faith, he was suddenly
called upon to transact delicate business of a private nature.
In 1568 the plague entered Geneva and carried off his step
brother Nicolas,1 who had succeeded his father as bailiff of
Vezelay, joined the Huguenots, and come as a fugitive to
Geneva with his wife, Perrette Tribole, when Vezelay fell
into Roman Catholic hands. He had been only a few days
in the city when he died. Beza felt it incumbent upon him
to go to Burgundy to see whether he could not save at
least a part of their inheritance for his two nephews ; and
this errand, after a great deal of trouble, he accomplished
successfully.

In 1571, after an absence of some eight years, he was
again summoned to France, this time by Coligny and the
young Prince de Beam, to attend the seventh national Synod
of the Reformed Church of France convened in La Rochelle.
The Venerable Company of Pastors would not part with
him without a protest, but yielded to the express wish of the
Syndics of the Republic. Beza himself was reluctant to go,
and indeed had declined a previous summons ; but the
crisis demanded an authoritative expression of the views
of the Swiss Churches upon the proposed reforms in the
discipline of the Church, and so he went. The Synod lasted
from the 2d to the 17th of April. He was elected its mod
erator. A revised Confession of Faith was drawn up, and
a vigorous reply made to the demand for increased authority
on the part of the temporal chiefs. On his way back to
Geneva he took part in another Synod, held at Nismes, and
was specially charged with the refutation of the opponents
to the established discipline.

On St. Bartholomew's Day, Sunday, Aug. 24, 1572, very
many Protestants were murdered in Paris, and for days
thereafter the shocking scenes were repeated in different

1 Also called by some Pierre.

§ 172. BEZA AS THE SUCCESSOR OF CALVIN. 865

parts of France.1 On the 1st of September the first com
pany of fugitives, many covered with wounds, made their
appearance in Geneva. A day of fasting and prayer was
ordered, and Beza exhorted his Swiss hearers to stand firm
and to provide all needed help to their stricken brethren.
Four thousand livres were collected in Geneva, and the
wants of the crowd of sufferers attended to.2

In 1574 Beza met Henry of Conde by appointment at
Strassburg, and successfully undertook the negotiations
which resulted in enlisting John Casimir to come with an
army to the succor of the Huguenots.

But Beza's advice was not always considered prudent by
the city authorities, who were more alive than he to the
great risk the city ran of reprisals in view of its connivance
with the Huguenot schemes. Thus in December of this
year, 1574, Beza countenanced a bootless military errand
in the direction of Macon and Chalons, and the magistrates
gently but firmly called him to account, and plainly told him
that he should never act so imprudently.3

On Nov. 26, 1580, the Peace of Fleix brought rest to
France for a little while. Beza showed his courage and
fidelity on this occasion by writing to King Henry of
Navarre, the Protestant leader, a letter in which he candidly
informed the king that he himself and his court stood in
great need of reformation. It is proof of the respect in which
the Reformer was held that the king received the rebuke
in good part, and of the king's light-mindedness that he did
not attempt to reform.4

1 The whole number of the massacred is reckoned at about thirty thou
sand. Cf. the monograph of Henri Bordier : La Saint- Barthdemy et la
critique moderne. Geneve et Paris, 1879.

2 Heppe, 248. Baird (II. 554-557) gives a graphic description of the
Genevese reception of the refugees, and shows how the city for so doing was
exposed to the revenge of Charles IX.

3 Baird, The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre, I. 50.
* Baird, ibid., I. 213 sq.

866 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

§ 173. Bezels Conferences with Lutherans.

The bitter theological differences between Lutherans and
Reformed had long been a disgrace. Beza had in early life
brought trouble upon himself by minimizing them, as has
been already recorded, but in his old age he made one more
attempt in that direction. Count Frederick of Wiirtemberg,
a Lutheran, but a friend of reconciliation, called a conference
at Montbeliard (or Mompelgard), a city in his domains in
which were many Huguenot refugees, with whom the Luther
ans would not fraternize. The count hoped that a discussion
between the leaders on each side might mend matters.
Accordingly he summoned Beza, confessedly the ablest advo
cate of Calvinism. On March 21, 1586, the conference began.
It took a wide range, but it came to nothing. Beza showed
a beautiful spirit of reconciliation, but Andrea, the Lutheran
leader, in the very spirit of Luther at the famous Marburg
Conference with Zwingli (1529), refused to take Beza's hand
at parting (March 29) -1

Undeterred by this churlish exhibition, Beza left Montbe*-
liard for another round of visits at German courts to induce
them once more to plead with France to restore to the
Huguenots their rights of worship ; for the Peace of Fleix
had not lasted long, and the country was again plunged in
the horrors of civil war.

The Montbeliard conference had an echo in the Bern
Colloquy of April 15th to 18th, 1588, in which Samuel
Huber, pastor at Burgdorf, near Bern, a notorious polemic,
and Beza represented the Lutheran and Calvinist parties,
respectively. It was Beza's last appearance as a public dis
putant, and the hero of so many wordy battles once more

1 Heppe, 287. Although he could riot greet him as a brother, Andrea-
kindly offered to give Beza his hand as a mark of his love toward him as a
fellow-man — a condescension which not unnaturally the Genevese reformer
at once declined. Baird, ibid., I. 401.

§ 174. BEZA AND HENRY IV. 867

carried off the palm. In fact, his victory was much more
decided than such contests were usually, as the Bernese
Council condemned Huber for misrepresenting Beza and
Calvinism generally.

Beza had left Geneva with a heavy heart because his faith
ful and beloved wife had just died, and when he returned,
found public matters in a critical condition. The magistrates
had felt themselves compelled by the condition of the city
treasury to economize as much as possible, and had dismissed
two of the professors in the Academy, and contemplated other
retrenchments. Beza knew that these extreme measures
would probably greatly cripple the institution, and so, old as
he was, and failing, he undertook to give a full course of
instruction in theology, and persisted with it for more than
two years, — until the crisis was passed, — and for these extra
duties he would not take any compensation.

§ 174. Beza and Henry IV.

In the course of his long life Beza had few joys, aside from
the abiding one of his religion, and many sorrows. His heart
was bound up with the fortunes of the Reformed Church in
France, and they were usually bad. Still he took courage
every time a little improvement was noticeable. Much hope
had he cherished in consequence of the accession of Henry of
Navarre (1589), because he was a Protestant. But early in
the summer of 1593, the news reached Geneva that the king,
upon whom religion and morality sat very lightly, in the
interests of peace and national prosperity, was determined to
abjure the Protestant faith. Alas for all their hopes ! Beza
was greatly moved, and addressed the monarch a letter in
which he set forth the eternal consequences of the change
the king was about to make.1 He felt assured, however, that
Henry would be delivered from the machinations of his and
their enemies, and not take the fatal step. But ere Beza's

1 See the letter in Heppe, 294-299.

868 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

letter reached him the deed was done. In the ancient abbey
church at St. Denis on the morning of Sunday, July 25, 1593,
King Henry of Navarre, the son of Jeanne d'Albret, the only
Huguenot who ever sat upon the throne of France, abjured
his faith, and took a solemn oath to protect the Koman, Cath
olic, and Apostolic religion.

Beza was deeply grieved at this apostasy. But when he
learned that the king favored his old co-religionists in many
ways, and especially, when in 1598, he published the Edict of
Nantes, which put the Protestants on a nearly common foot
ing with the Roman Catholics in France, Beza took a more
hopeful view of the king's condition. In 1599 the king, in the
course of a war with Charles Emmanuel, approached near
Geneva. The city saw in this a chance to obtain from the
king the promise of his protection, especially against the Duke
of Savoy, who had built a fort called St. Catherine, quite
near Geneva. To effect this the city sent a delegation headed
by Beza, and the interview between the monarch and the
reformer was honorable to both. The king gladly gave his
promise, and the next year the fort was destroyed. He also
came to Geneva and received its hospitality.

§ 175. Bezels Last Days.

Beza's life was now drawing to its close. The weight of
years had become a grievous burden. His bodily powers
gradually deserted him. He partially lost his hearing. His
memory became so enfeebled that the past only remained to
him, while recent events made no lasting impression. It was
the breaking up of an extraordinarily vigorous constitution,
which had so supported him for sixty-five years that he had
scarcely known what it was to be sick. Then he took the
prudent course of giving up one by one the duties which he
had so long discharged. In 1586 he was excused from
preaching daily, and henceforth till 1600 preached only on
Sunday. In 1598 he retired from active duty in the Acad-

§ 175. BEZA'S LAST DAYS. 869

emy, and sold his library, giving part of the proceeds, which
were considerable, to his wife, and part to the poor. In 1600
he rendered his last public services in the Academy, and
preached his last sermon — the only one preached in the
seventeenth, by a reformer of the sixteenth, century.1

Occasionally something of the old wit flashed forth. As
when he made his reply to the silly rumor that he had
yielded to the argumentation of FranQois de Sales and had
gone over to Rome. The facts are these : Francois came to
Geneva in 1597 with the express purpose of converting Beza.
He was then thirty years old, very zealous, very skilful, and
in many other cases had been successful. But he met his
match in the old Reformer, who however listened to him
courteously. What argument failed to accomplish, the priest
thought money might do, and so he offered Beza in the name
of the pope a yearly pension of four thousand gold crowns
and a sum equal to twice as much as the value of all his
personal effects! This brought matters to a climax, and Beza
dismissed him with the polite but sarcastic and decisive
rebuke, " Go, sir ; I am too old and too deaf to be able to
hear such words." 2

But from some quarter the report got abroad that Beza had
yielded. This was added to as it passed along until it was
confidently asserted that Beza and many other former Gene
van Protestants were on their way to Rome to enter the
papal fold. Their very route was told, and on an evening in
the middle of September, 1597, the faithful people of Siena
waited by the gate of their city to receive the great leader !
But for some reason he did not come. Then it was said that
he was dead; but that ere he died he had made his peace
with the Church and had received extreme unction.

When the friends of Beza heard these idle tales, they merely
smiled. But Beza concluded to give convincing proof of two
facts : first, that he was not dead, and second, that he was

1 Heppe, 307. 2 Ibid. 314.

870 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

still a Protestant of the straitest Calvinistic school ; and so
quite in the old manner he nailed the lie by a biting epigram.

When in 1600 Francois would hold a public discussion with
the Genevans, Beza, knowing how unprofitable such discus
sions were, forbade it. Whereupon it was given out that the
Reformers were afraid to meet their opponents !

Another flare of the old flame of poetry was occasioned by
the visit from King Henry IV., already alluded to. It was
a poem of six stanzas, Ad inclytum Francice et Navarrce regem
Henricum IV. (" to the renowned King of France and
Navarre, Henry IV.") " It was his last, his swan song." 1

Wearied by the vigils of a perilous and exciting time, Beza
had long anxiously looked for his final rest. He had fought
a good fight and had kept the faith and was ready to receive
his crown. On Sunday, Oct. 13, 1605, he died.

In his will 2 Beza ordered his burial to be in the common
cemetery of Plain Palais, where Calvin was buried, and near
the remains of his wife. But in consequence of a Savoyard
threat to carry off his body to Rome, by order of the magis
trates, he was buried in the cloister of the cathedral of St.
Peter, in the city of Geneva.

Of the six great Continental Reformers, — Luther, Melanch-
thon, Zwingli, Bullinger, Calvin, and Beza, — Beza was the
most finished gentleman, according to the highest standard
of his time. He was not lacking in energy, nor was he
always mild. But he was able to hold court with courtiers,
be a wit with wits, and show classical learning equal to that
of the best scholars of his age. Yet with him the means
were only valued because they reached an end, and the
great end he had ever in mind was the conservation of the
Reformed Church of Geneva and France.

His public life was an extraordinary one. Like the Apostle
Paul he could say that he had been "in journeyings often,

1 Heppe, 310.

2 Given at length in a German translation by Heppe, 304-306.

§ 176. BEZA'S WRITINGS. 871

in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own
countrymen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness,
in perils among false brethren ; in labor and travail, in watch-
ings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and
nakedness. Besides those things that are without, there is
that which presseth upon me daily, anxiety for all the
churches" (2 Cor. 11:26-28). It was indeed a brilliant
service which this versatile man rendered. Under his watch
ful care the city of Geneva enjoyed peace and prosperity,
the Academy flourished and its students went everywhere
preaching the Word, while the Reformed Church of France
was built up by him. Calvin lived again and in some
respects lived a bolder life in his pupil and friend.

It is pleasant to get glimpses of Beza's home life. Men
like him are seldom able to enjoy their homes. But Beza
had for forty years the love and devotion of the wife of
his youth. They had no children, but his fatherly heart may
have found some expression in adopting his wife's niece
Genevieve Denosse, whom he educated with great care, and
also in his parental solicitude for his brother's children. It is
perhaps to be taken as indicative of the domestic character of
the man that, on the advice of friends, within a year after his
wife died (1589), he married Catherine del Piano, a widow
of a Genevese. He also adopted her grand-daughter. It is
probable that he always lived in some state ; at all events
his will proves that he had considerable property.

§ 176. Beza's Writings.

Beza's name will ever be most honorably associated with
biblical learning. Indeed, to many students his services in
this department will constitute his only claim to notice.
Every one who knows anything of the uncial manuscripts of
the Greek New Testament has heard of the Codex Bezse, or
of the history of the printed text of the New Testament has
heard of Beza's editions and of his Latin translation with

872 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

notes. The Codex Bezse, known as D in the list of the uncials,
also as Codex Cantabrigiensis, is a manuscript of the Gospels
and Acts, originally also of the Catholic Epistles, dating from
the sixth century.1 Its transcriber would seem to have been
a Gaul, ignorant of Greek. Beza procured it from the mon
astery of St. Irenseus, at Lyons, when the city was sacked by
Des Adrets, in 1562, but did not use it in his edition of the
Greek Testament, because it departed so widely from the
other manuscripts, which departures are often supported by
the ancient Latin and Syriac versions. He presented it to
the University of Cambridge in 1581, and it is now shown
in the library among the great treasures.

Beza was also the possessor of an uncial manuscript of the
Pauline Epistles, also dating from the sixth century. How
he got hold of it is unknown. He merely says (Preface to his
3d ed. of the N. T., 1582) that it had been found at Clermont,
near Beauvais, France. It may have been another fortune of
war. After his death it was sold, and ultimately came into
the Royal (now the National) Library in Paris, and there it
is preserved.2 Beza made some use of it. Both these man
uscripts were accompanied by a Latin version of extreme
antiquity.

Among the eminent editors of the Greek New Testament,
Beza deserves prominent mention. He put forth four folio
editions of Stephen's Greek text; viz. 1565, 1582, 1589, with
a Latin version, the Latin Vulgate, and Annotations. He
issued also several octavo editions with his Latin version, and
brief marginal notes (1565, 1567, 1580, 1590, 1604). 3

What especially interests the English Bible student is the

1 A very full description of it is given by Scrivener, Introduction to the
Criticism of the New Testament, 3d ed. 120-127 ; cf. Gregory, Prolegomena in
N. T. Tischendorjianum ed. viii. maior, 369-374 ; Schaff, Companion to the Greek
Testament, 122-124.

2 For full description, see Scrivener, ibid. 163-166; cf. Gregory, ibid.
419-422.

8 Schaff, ibid. 237-238, and his tract on the Revision of the N. T., p. 28 sq.

§ 176. BEZA'S WRITINGS. 873

close connection he had with the Authorized Version. Not
only were his editions in the hands of King James' revisers,
but his Latin version with its notes was constantly used by
them. He had already influenced the authors of the Gene
van version (1557 and 1560), as was of course inevitable,
and this version influenced the Authorized. As Beza was
undoubtedly the best Continental exegete of the closing part
of the sixteenth century, this influence of his Latin version
and notes was on the whole beneficial. But then it must be
confessed that he was also responsible for many errors of
reading and rendering in the Authorized Version.1

Beza was the chief theologian of the Reformed Church
after Calvin. Principal Cunningham has shown2 the part
Beza played in bringing about the transition from the origi
nal Calvinism to the scholastic form, hard and mechanical,
and so unconsciously preparing the way for the great reaction
from Calvinism, viz. Arminianism ; for Arminius had been
a student in the Genevan Academy under Beza. Beza drew
up in the form of a chart a curious scheme of a system of
theology, and he published it in his Tractationes (mentioned
below) along with a commentary, Summa totius Christian-
ismi sive descriptio et distributio causarum salutis electorum
et exitii reproborum, ex sacris literis collecta et explicata,
pp. 170 sqq. Heppe reprints the chart.

The chief work published by Beza, though not acknowl
edged by him, is the famous and invaluable Histoire eccle-
siastique des Eglises Reformees au royaume de France,
originally issued at Antwerp in 1580, 3 vols. 8vo. The

1 The late Ezra Abbot, the biblical textual critic, at Dr. Schaff's request,
made a very careful collation of the different editions of Beza with the
Authorized Version, and found that "the Authorized Version agrees with
Beza's text of 1589 against Stephen's of 1550 in about ninety places ; with
Stephen's against Beza in about forty ; and in from thirty to forty places,
in most of which the variations are of a trivial character, it differs from both."
Schaff : The Revision of the English Version of the New Testament, New York,
1873 (Introd. p. xxviii). Cf. Farrar, Histon/ of interpretation, p. 342, note 3.

2 See his Reformers (pp. 345-413) mentioned at the head of this chapter.

874 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

best edition of which is that by Baum (d. 1881), Cunitz
(d. 1886), and Rodolphe Reuss, Paris, 1883-89, 3 vols. small
quarto. It is well known to scholars that the first four books
are in a great degree composed of extracts from contempora
neous works, especially the Histoire des Martyrs by Crespin,
and the Histoire de Vestat de France, attributed to Regnier de
la Plance'e, but no indication is given whence the extracts
are taken. This defect in modern eyes is removed in the
edition spoken of. The genesis of the work seems to be this,
that Beza received reports from all parts of France in reply
to the Synod's recommendation that the churches write their
histories for the benefit of posterity, that he arranged these,
and inserted much autobiographical matter, but as he had to
employ unknown persons to assist him, he modestly refused
to put his name to the book.

Beza's " Life of Calvin " was written in French, and imme
diately translated by himself into Latin (Geneva, 1565).
It is the invaluable, accurate, and sympathetic picture of the
great Reformer by one who knew him intimately and revered
him deeply. It has been constantly used in the former
chapters of this volume. It is by far the best of the con
temporary biographies of any of the Reformers.

Beza collected his miscellanies under the title Tractationes
theologicce, Geneva, 1570, 2d ed. 1582, 3 vols. folio. In these
volumes will be found united his chief essays, including the
De hcereticis d civili magistratu puniendis, adversus M. Bellium
(I. 85-169), already analyzed. The first part was reprinted
as late as 1658 under the new title Opuscula, in quibus ple-
raque Christianas religionis dogmata adversus hcereses nostris
temporibus renovatas solide ex verbo Dei defenduntur.

In 1573 he published a curious volume of correspond
ence on theological subjects, Epistolarum Theologicarum.
The letters are written to different persons and are
variously dated from 1556 to 1572. The volume is printed
in small italics and was so popular that the third edition

§ 176. BEZA'S WRITINGS. 875

appeared at Hanover in 1597. But the number of his
letters published is greatly exceeded by those still in
manuscript.

In 1577 he published Lex Dei, morally ceremonialis, et poli
tico,, ex libris Mosis excerpta, et in certas classes distribute.
This is simply the legal portions of the Pentateuch classified,
without note or comment, apparently under the theory that
the Mosaic law is still binding.

In 1581 Beza, in connection with Daneau and Salnar,
issued the Harmonia Confessionum Fidei, designed to promote
Christian union among the evangelical churches.1

Mention has already been made of Beza as a poet. His
Poemata, Paris, 1548, commonly called Juvenilia, consists of
epigrams, epitaphs, elegies, and bucolics. They are classical
in expression, and erotic in sentiment, though not so vicious
as such a libeller as Bolsec would have us believe. His
Abraham's Sacrifice, already alluded to, was written in French
(Geneva, 1550), and translated into Italian (Florence, 1572),
English (London, 1577), and Latin (Geneva, 1597). It was
republished along with the Poemata, Geneva, 1597. Of
much more importance is his translation of the Psalms, com
pleting that begun by Clement Marot. It was undertaken
at Calvin's request, and published in sections, and finished
at Geneva in 1560.

i See Schaff, Creeds, I. 354; II. 193 sqq.

876

APPENDIX.

LITERATURE ON THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.

Comp. the literature in § 58, pp. 223-230 ; and Schaff s Creeds of Christen
dom, vol. I. 490 sq.

The best libraries on the history of Protestantism in France are in Paris
(Socie'tede I'histoire du Protestantisms fj-ancais, 54 rue des Saint-Peres), Geneva,
Zurich, Basel, and Strassburg. The most important works are in the library
of the Union Theological Seminary at New York.

I. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF PROTESTANTISM IN FRANCE.

* A. L. HERMIXJARD : Correspondance des Reformateurs dans les pays de langue
francaise. Geneve and Paris, 1866-1886. 7 vols. From 1512 to 1542. To
be continued.

* CALVIN'S Correspondence from 1528 to his death in 1564, in his Opera,
vols. X.-XX.

[* THEODORE BEZA] : Ilistoire eccle'siastique des e'glises reforme'es au royaume
de France, from the beginning of the Reformation to the first civil war
(1521-1563). Anvers, 1580, 3 vols.; Toulouse, 1882, in 2 vols.; best ed. by
BAUM, CUNITZ, and RODOLPHE REUSS, with ample commentary and biblio
graphical notices. Paris (Fischbacher), 1883-1889, 3 vols. Part of Les Clas-
siques du Protestantisme francais, XVIe, XVIIs, et XVIII6 siecles, published
with the patronage of the Sode'te de I'histoire du Protestantisme francais.

This work was formerly ascribed to Beza, but is a compilation by several
anonymous authors under the direction and with the co-operation of Beza.
Some portions are literally borrowed from Crespin's " Martyrology." Senebier
thinks that the first part was prepared by Beza, the other two under his direc
tion. See Soldan, I. 88; Heppe, Theod. Beza, p. 382 sq. ; La France Prot.
(2d ed.), II. 535; and especially the notice bibliographique, etc., of R. Reuss in
the third volume of Baum's edition.

*JEAN CRESPIN (a friend of Beza and publisher in Geneva; d. 1572):
Livre des martyrs (Acta Martyrum}, depuis le temps de Wiclif et de Jean Hus
jusqu'a present, 1554. Latin ed. : Acta Martyrum, or Actiones et Monimenta
Martyrum, etc. 1st ed. 1556. Enlarged edition, Geneve, 1619, 2 vols. fol. ;
Amsterd., 1684. Several French, Latin, Dutch, English, and German edi
tions. See Polenz, Gesch. des franz. Calvinismus, I. 723-735, and La France
Protest., IV. 885-910. Latest and best edition, under the title Histoire des
martyrs persecutez et mis a mort pour la ve'rite' de VlZvangile depuis le temps des
apostres jusqu'a pre'sent (1619), Toulouse, 1889. 3 large vols. 8vo. With
notes, etc., by M. Lelievre.

877

878 APPENDIX.

FLORIMOND DE RAEMOND (Rom. Cath.) : L'histoire de la naissance, progres
et decadence de I'he're'sie de ce siecle. Paris, 1610.

Louis MAIMBOURG (Jesuit historian and controversialist, 1620-1686) :
Histoire du calvinisme. Paris, 2d ed., 1682, 2 vols. 12mo. He presents Calvin
ism as the direct road to atheism. Calvin's doctrine of predestination, he says,
(I. 110) " de'truit absolument toute I'ide'e qu'on doit avoir de Dieu, et ensuite conduit
tout droit a I'Athe'isme."

PETER JURIEU (Protestant historian and controversialist, 1637-1713) :
Histoire du Calvinisme et celle du Papisme mises en parallele, ou apologie pour
les refer mateurs, pour la reformation, et pour les reformez. Rotterdam, 1683.
3 vols. An answer to Maimbourg. He wrote also against Bossuet.

PIERRE BAYLE (sceptic) : Critique ge'ne'rale de I'histoire du calvinisme.
Rotterdam, 1684.

Bishop BOSSUET : Histoire des variations des e'glises protestantes. Paris, 1688.
2 vols. Several editions and translations — not historical, but polemical and
partial. The ablest French work against Protestantism, containing argu
ments derived from its divisions and changes.

* ELIE BENOIT (1640-1728) : Histoire de Vfidit de Nantes. Delft, 1693-
1695. 5 vols. 4to. English and Dutch translations. The first volume goes to
the death of Henri IV. in 1610 ; vols. II., III., and IV. to 1683 ; vol. V. to 1688.

SERRANUS (JEAN DE SERRES, historiographer of France, 1540-1598) : Com-
mentarii de statu religionis et reipublicce in regno Gallioe, 1571-1580 (five parts).

THEOD. AGRIPPA D'AUBIGNE (ALBIN.EUS), a Huguenot in the service of
Henry IV. ; d. at Geneva, 1630) : Histoire universelle (from 1550 to the end
of the sixteenth century). Maille', 1616-1620. 3 vols. Amsterd. (Geneva),
1626, 2 vols. Also in his (Euvres completes, Paris, 1873.

PHILIPPE DU PLESSIS-MORNAY : Me'moires. Paris, 1624-1625, 2 vols. 4to ;
Amsterd., 1651. Me'moires et Lettres. Paris, 1824. 12 vols. Mornay was the
most accomplished and influential Protestant nobleman of his age, a fertile
author, soldier, diplomatist, and statesman, who lived under six reigns from
Henry II. to Louis XIII. — Mme. Du PLESSIS-MORNAY: Me'moires et Corre-
spondance. Paris, 1868. 2 vols. On the life of her husband.

JEAN AYMON (d. 1712) : Tous les si/nodes nationaux des e'glises reformers de
France. La Haye, 1710. 2 vols. 4to.

* JOHN QUICK (a learned Non-conformist, d. 1706) : Synodicon in GaUia
reformata ; or the Acts, Decisions, and Canons of the National Councils of the
Reformed Churches in France. London, 1692. 2 vols. fol. (with a history of
the Church till 1685). Much more accurate than Aymon.

E. A. LAVAL: Compendious History of the Reformation in France . . . to the
Repealing of the Edict of Nantes. London, 1737-1741. 7 vols. 8vo.

W. S. BROWNING : A History of the Huguenots. 1829-1839. 3 vols. 8vo.
Reprinted at Philadelphia (Lea & Blanchard), 1845.

EDWARD SMEDLEY (d. 1836) : History of the Reformed Religion in France.
London, 1832-1834. 3 vols. 12mo. Reprinted New York (Harper & Bros.).

CHARLES COQUEREL (1797-1851) : Histoire des e'glises du De'sert chez le*
Protestants de France depuis la fin du regne de Louis XIV. jusqu'a la resolution
francaise. Paris, 1841. 2 vols. 8vo. New ed. 1857.

APPENDIX. 879

N. PEYRAT: Histoire des pasteurs du Desert. Paris, 1842. 2 vols. 8vo.

GUILL. DE FELICE (Prof, at Montauban, d. 1871) : Histoire des protestants
de France. Toulouse, 1851 ; with supplement by F. BONIFAS, 1874. English
translation by Lobdell, 1851. By the same: Histoire des synodes nationaux
des e'glises re'forme'es de France. Paris, 1864.

C. DRION : Histoire chronologique de I'e'glise protestante de France jusqu'a la
Revocation. Paris, 1855. 2 vols. 12mo.

* W. G. SOLDAN: Geschichte des Protestantismus in Frankreich bis zum Tode
Karl's IX. Leipzig, 1855. 2 vols. Frankreich und die Bartholomdusnacht,
1854. The same, translated by Charles Schmidt: La France et la St. Bar-
the'lemy. Paris, 1855. 147 pp.

E. STAHELIN: Der Uebertritt Heinrich's IV. Basel, 1856. (The change of
Henry IV. was dictated by political and patriotic motives to secure himself
on the throne, to give peace to France, and liberty to the Huguenots.)

* G. VON POLENZ : Geschichte des franzosischen Calvinismus bis zur National-
versammlung i. J. 1789, zum Theil aus handschriftl. Quellen. Gotha, 1857-
1869. 5 vols. 8vo.

* EUGENE and EMILE HAAG (brothers) : La France protestante. Paris,
1856 sqq. 10 vols. ; 2d ed. revised, published under the auspices of the
" Societe de 1'histoire du Protestantisme fran9ais," and under the direction
of Henri Bordier, Paris (Sandoz et Fischbacher), 1877 sqq. Biographies of
distinguished Huguenots in alphabetical order. Very important. So far (till
1888) 6 vols. (The sixth volume ends with Gasparin.}

E. CASTEL : Les Huguenots et la Constitution de I'e'glise reform.ee de France en
1559. Paris and Geneva, 1859. 16mo.

J. M. DARGAUD: La Liberte religieuse en France. Paris, 1859. 4 vols. 8vo.

H. DE TRIQUETI : Les premiers jours du Protestantisme en France depuis son
origine jusqu'au premier synode national de 1559. Paris, 1859. 16mo (302 pp.).
Popular.

HENRI LUTTEROTH : La Reformation en France pendant sa premiere periode*
Paris, 1859. 8vo (233 pp.).

* MERLE D'AUBIGNE : Histoire de la Reformation en Europe au temps de Cal
vin. Paris, 1862-1878. English translation by William L. R. Cates. London
(Longmans, Green, & Co.), 1863-1878. 8 vols. (Republished by the Carters
in New York.) This great work comes down to 1542, and embraces the Refor
mation in French Switzerland, France, England, Scotland, and Spain. The
author intended to carry it down to the death of Calvin, 1564, but died (1872)
before he completed it.

H. WHITE : Massacre of St. Bartholomew. London, 1868. 8vo. New Yorkr
1868.

F. PUAUX: Histoire de la Reformation fran^aise. Paris, 1868. 7 vols. 12mo.
W. M. BLACKBURN: Admiral Coligny and the Rise of the Huguenots. Phila
delphia, 1869. 2 vols. 8vo.

ADOLPHE SCHAEFFER : Les Huguenots du seizieme siecle. Paris, 1870.
(331 pp.).

* W. HENLEY JERVIS : A History of the Church of France, from the Concordat
of Bologna, A.D. 1516, to the Revolution. London, 1872. 2 vols. 8vo. pp.
xxiv, 476, xi, 452.

880 APPENDIX.

FELIX BOVET : Histoire da psautier ties e'glises reformers. Neuchatel, 1872.

* 0. DOUEN : Clement- Marot et le Psautier Huguenot. Paris, 1878 sq. 2 vols.
(a 1'imprimerie nationale). Very important for the history of worship in the
French Reformed Church, with a history of Marot and his relation to Calvin.
The second volume contains les harmonistes du Psautier, a discussion of the
influence of the Reformation on music, the Psalms of Goudimel, and the
Frencli bibliography on the Psalter.

0. DOUEN : Les premiers pasteurs du Desert (1685-1700) d'apres des docu
ments pour la plupart ine'dits. Paris (Grassart), 1879. 2 vols. 8vo.

* HENRI BORDIER : La Saint-Barthe'lemy et la critique moderne. Geneve and
Paris, 1879 (116 pp., with illustrations).

JULES DELABORDE : Gaspar de Coligny, Amiral de France. Paris (Fisch-
bacher), 1879. 3 vols.

* HENRY M. BAIRD (Professor in the University of the City of New York) :
History of the Rise of the Huguenots of France (1515-1574). New York, 1879.
2 vols. 8vo. The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre (1574-1610). New York,
1886. 2 vols. 8vo. The Edict of Nantes and its Eecall. In the " Commemo
ration of the Bi-centenary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes " (Oct. 22,
1885), by the Huguenot Society of America. New York, 1886.

E. MUHLENBECK: Claude Rouget. Une e'glise Calviniste au XVIme siecle
(JL 5 52-1 5 82). Histoire de la communaute' re'formee de Ste-Marie-aux- Mines
(Alsace'}. Paris and Strasbourg, 1881 (515 pp.). 8vo.

H. BAUMGARTEN: Vor der Bartholomdusnacht . Strassburg, 1882 (263pp.).

BARON KERVYN DE LETTENHOVE : Les Huguenots et les Gueux (1560-1585).
Bruges, 1883-1885. 6 vols. Includes the contemporary history of the
Netherlands. A very partial book.

EUGENE BKRSIER (Reformed pastor in Paris, d. 1889) : Coligny avant les
guerres de religion. Paris, 1884.

ERNEST GAULLIEUR (archiviste de la ville de Bordeaux) : Histoire de la
reformation a Bordeaux et dans le ressort du parlement de Guyenne. Bordeaux
and Paris, 1884 sqq. The first vol. extends from 1523-1563.

THEO. SCHOTT: Die Aufhebung des Ediktes von Nantes im Oktober, 1685.
Halle, 1885. 8vo.

[LEON PILATTE] : J^dits, Declarations et Arrests concernant la religion pre'ten-
due reforme'e, 1662-1751, precedes de I'tfdit de Nantes. Paris, 1885.

* L. AGUESSE (d. 1862) : Histoire de Vetablissement du Protestantisme en
France contenant I'histoire politique et religieuse de la nation depuis Francois Ier
jusqu'a re'dit de Nantes. Paris, 1886. 4 vols. A posthumous work of twenty
years' labor, published by Charles Menetrier and Mme. Menetrier, nee Aguesse.

* EDMOND HUGUES : Antoine Court. Histoire de la restauration du Protestan
tisme en France, Paris, 4th ed. revised, 1875, 2 vols. — Les Synodes du Desert.
Actes ft reglements des synodes nationaux et provinciaux tenus au desert de France
de I' an 1715 a I'an 1793. Paris (Fischbacher), 1885-1886. 3 large vols.
Supplement au tome premier, 1887.

N. WEISS (librarian and ed. of the Bulletin of the Soc. of the Hist, of
French Prot.) : La chambre ardente, e'tude sur la liberte' de conscience en France
sous Francois Ier et Henri II (1540-1550) suivie d'environ 500 arrets ine'dits,

APPENDIX. 881

rendus par le parUment de Paris de Mai 1547 a Mars 1550. Paris, 1889
(432 pp.). 8vo.

PHILIP SCHAFF: History of the Edict of Nantes. An address delivered
before the Huguenot Society of America, March 21, 1889. New York, 1890.

* CHARLES DARDIER : Paul Rabaut : Ses lettres a Antoine Court (1739-1755),
Paris, 1884, 2 vols. ; and Ses Lettres a Divers (1744-1794), avec preface, notes
et pieces justificatives. Paris, 1892. 2 vols.

* Bulletin historique ei litteraire. A monthly periodical published by the
Societe de I'histoire du Protantisme francais. Paris (54 rue des Saints-Peres),
1853 sqq. (39e annee, 1890). Contains historical studies and important docu
ments of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.

II. GENERAL HISTORIES OF FRANCE.

FRANCISCUS BELCARIUS PEGUILIO (BEAUCAIRE DE PEGUILLON, bishop of
Metz) : Serum Gallicarum Commentarii ab anno 1461 ad annum 1580- Lugd.
1625 fol. 1026 pp. Strongly anti-Calvinistic.

Choix de chroniques et me'moires sur I'histoire de France, in the Pantheon litte-
raire of J. A. BUCHON. Paris, 1836-1838. 8 vols.

Nouvelle collection des me'moires pour servir a I'histoire de France, by PETITOT,
MICHAUD, and POUJOULAT. lre serie, torn. VI. Paris, 1839.

* THUANUS (JACQUES AUGUSTE DE THOU, 1553-1617) : Historiarum sui tem-
poris libri 138, from 1546-1607 (several editions in 5, 7, and 16 vols.). The
author was a moderate Catholic, witnessed the massacre of St. Bartholomew,
and helped to prepare the Edict of Nantes. His history was put in the
Index Expurg. 1609, but survived the papal condemnation.

LACRETELLE : Histoire de France pendant les guerres de religion. Paris,
1814-1816. 4 vols.

SIMONDE DE SISMONDI : Histoire des Francais. Par. 1821-1844. 31 vols.
8vo (from vol. XVI.).

* JULES MICHELET (1798-1876) : Histoire de France. 1833-1862 (new ed.
1879). 14 vols. (Vols. IX. La Renaissance; X. La Ee'forme ; XI. Les Guerres
de Religion.}

Sir JAMES STEPHEN : Lectures on the History of France. 1857, 3d ed.
2 vols.

* LEOP. v. RANKE : Franzosische Geschichte namentlich im 16. und 17. Jahrh.
Stuttgart and Tubingen, 1852-1868; 3d ed. 1877. 6 vols. (English transla
tion in part, London, 1852. 2 vols.)

* HENRI MARTIN : Histoire de France depuis les temps les plus recule's jusqu'en
1789. Paris, 1887 ; 4th ed. 1854-1878. 17 vols. (vols. VIII. -X.)

* BORDIER and CHARTON : Histoire de France. Paris, 1858, 1872 ; nouvelle
e'd. 1881. 2 vols. with numerous illustrations. Gives very accurate informa
tion on the Protestant Reformation.

III. HISTORY OF THE HUGUENOT REFUGEES.

CHARLES WEISS (Prof, au lycee Bonaparte, d. 1881) : Histoire des re'fugie's
protestants de France depuis la revocation de I' edit de Nantes jusqu'a nos jours.

882 APPENDIX.

Paris, 1853. 2 vols. English translation by W. H. Herbert. London and
New York, 1854. 2 vols.

SAMUEL SMILES : The Huguenots, their Settlements, Churches, and Industries
in England and Ireland. London, 1867 (Am. ed. with Appendix by G. P.
Disosway, New York, 1867).

W. H. FOOTE (pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Romney, W. Va. ) :
The Huguenots; or, Reformed French Church; their principles delineated; their
characters illustrated; their sufferings and successes recorded. In three parts.
I. The Huguenot in France, at home. II. The Huguenot dispersed in Europe.
III. The Huguenot at home in America. With an Appendix. Richmond, 1870.
pp. xx, 627.

DAVID C. A. AGNEW (of the Free Church of Scotland) : Protestant Exiles
from France in the Reign of Louis XIV.; or, the Huguenot Refugees and their
Descendants in Great Britain and Ireland. 2d ed. (corrected and enlarged),
1871-1874. 3 vols. 3d ed. (remodelled and greatly enlarged), including the
French-speaking refugees in former reigns. London and Edinburgh, 1886.
2 vols. pp. 457 and 548.

R. LANE POOLE : A History of the Huguenots of the Dispersion at the Recall
of the Edict of Nantes. London, 1880.

CHARLES W. BAIRD (brother of Henry M. B.) : History of the Huguenot
Emigration to America. New York, 1885. 2 vols.

LE BARON F. DE SCHICKLER (President of the Soc. of the Hist, of French
Protestantism) : Les e'glises du refuge en Angleterre. Paris, 1892. 3 vols. (pp.
431, 536, 432).

HENRY TOLLIN (minister of the Huguenot Church in Magdeburg) :
Geschichte des hugenottischen Refuges in Deutschland ; Geschichte der franzb'sichen
Colonieen der Provinz Sachsen, Halle, 1892 ; Geschichte der franzb'sichen Colonie
von Magdeburg. Magdeburg, 1893. 3 vols.

Geschichtsbldtter des DEUTSCHEN HUGENOTTEN-VEREINS. Magdeburg, 1892
sq. (Ten numbers till 1893.) Historical sketches of Huguenot churches in
Germany.

The Proceedings of the HUGUENOT SOCIETY or LONDON of which three
volumes, 8vo, have appeared (1885-1892) contain many historical papers of
importance. Of the Publications of the same Society, six volumes, quarto,
have appeared up to 1891. Vol. VI. contains the despatches of the Venetian
ambassadors from France, 1560-1563.

Bulletin de la Commission de I'Histoire des tfglises Wallonnes. The Hague.
Five volumes, 8vo, have appeared (1885-1892). Contains many articles on
French Protestant Church History.

The Publications of the HUGUENOT SOCIETY OF AMERICA. New York,
1886 sqq.

Lichtenberger's Encyclope'die des Sciences Religieuses (13 vols.) contains
many good articles on French Protestantism, especially vol. V. 186-191.

ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF NAMES AND TOPICS,

Academicans, sceptical, 630.

Academy of Geneva, 883.

Aebli, Hans, 117, 168, 172.

Agricola, J., 602.

Alciati, G., 655.

Alexander, W. L., on Calvin, 292.

Allegorizing, 527, 532, 536.

Ameaux, P., 497, 499, 501, 511.

Anabaptists, 69.

Anabaptists, persecution of, 67, 81, 84,
351 ; principles, 71, 75, 126 ; as to bap
tism, 76, 78 ; hymnody, 80.

Andrere, the younger, 518; the older,
866.

Antistes, 68.

Appenzell, 128.

" Archeteles," 48.

Arminius, Jas., on Calvin, 280.

Arminianism, 262, 815.

Arrowsmith, Dr., quoted, 577.

Artichauds, 426.

Astrology and astronomy among the
Reformers, 676, 678, 724.

Audin, on Calvin, 312, 493, 508, 828.

Augsburg Confession, 664, 665.

Augustin, in theology, 539; on predes
tination, 554; on infant salvation,
556; on persecution, 697.

Augustinianism, 541.

Ban, the, 114, 251.

Bancroft, Geo., on Calvin for popular

education, 354; on Calvin as a

reformer, 522.
Baptism, according to Zwingli, 72;

Anabaptist view, 76; Calvin's view,

373, 480, 584; B. and salvation, 556.
Baptists, 69, 85, 587.
Basel, or Basle, 107, 116, 218, 222, 325.
Baudouin, F., 444.

Baum, Pierre de la, 399, 427.

Baur, F. C., on Zwingli, 36 ; on Calvin's
"Institutes," 329; on Calvin, 834;
on Servetus, 736, 738.

Baxter, R., on Calvin, 287.

Bayle, P., on Calvin, 276.

Beghards, 498.

Bellay, Cardinal de, 506.

Bellius, Martinus, 627, 794.

Bembo, Cardinal, 400, 640.

Bernard, J., 428, 438, 475.

Bern, or Berne, 103, 170, 180, 234, 236,
244, 434.

" Beruer Synodus," 106.

Berthelier, P., 233, 497, 501, 510, 512,
514.

Beza, or Beze, Theodore de, on French
Reformers, 238; as professor, 259; on
religious liberty, 794; against relig
ious liberty, 797 ; on the last days of
Calvin, 823; life to his conversion,
844; secret marriage, 848; public
marriage, 849 ; professor at Lausanne,
850; a delegate to the German
princes, 851 ; called to Geneva, made
rector of the Academy and pastor in
the city, 852 ; delegate to the princes,
853; at the Colloquy of Poissy, 854;
in the civil war, 858; succeeds Cal
vin, 862; his brother Nicolas, 864;
at the Synods of Rochelle, 864; and
of Nismes, 864 ; receives refugees from
the massacre of St. Bartholomew's
Day, 865; meets Henry of Conde,
865 ; writes to Henry of Navarre, 865 ;
at the conference of Montbe'liard, 866 ;
on the abjuration of Henry of Na
varre, 867 ; his alleged conversion,
869; last poem, 870; closing labors,
870 ; death and burial, 870 ; home life,

883

884

ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF NAMES AND TOPICS.

871; writings, 871; uncial MSS. of
the N. T., 871 ; editions of the Greek
N. T. and his Latin version, 872;
influence on the A. V., 873; type
of Calvinism, 873; connection with
the "Histoire ecclesiastique," 873;
" Life of Calvin," 874; "Theological
Tracts," 874 ; " Theological Letters,"
874 ; poetical works, 875.

Biandrata, G., 654.

Bible, translated into German, 63 ; su
premacy of, 90; authority of, 220,
537, 680; translated into French,
239, 242 ; early editions of, 528 ; Cas-
tellio's Latin translation, 623.

Bibliander, T., 211.

Blanchet, P., 438, 441.

Blaurock, G., 73, 83.

Bocher, Joan, burned, 711.

Bolsec, H. H., on Calvin, 302; history,
615, 619, 827; theological errors, 617;
on Beza, 843.

Bonivard, F., 233, 507.

Bossuet, on Calvin, 266, 274.

" Breadworship," 668, 672.

Breitinger, J. J., 214.

Bruno, G., burned, 699.

Bucer, M., on Calvin, 272, 329, 434;
history, 364, 603; on the eucharist,
589.

Bullinger, H., history, 205, 207; corre
spondence of, 208 ; on toleration, 211,
636 ; rules for son, 212 ; close of life,
213; writings, 214; supporting Cal
vin, 514; on predestination, 618.

Bure, Idelette de, 415, 419.

Buxtorf , 218.

Caesaropapacy, 67, 175.

Calvin, Antoine, 299.

Calvin, John, compared with other Re
formers, 257, 262; with Hildebrand,
262; his theology, 260, 524; intoler
ance of, 265, 395, 483, 511, 626 ; liter
ary power, 265, 267; writings, 208;
tributes to, 270-295, 520-523; his
youth, 296, 303 ; education, 300, 304;
a humanist, 308; conversion, 310;
mission, 313; escape, 319; an itiner
ant, 322 ; at Basel, 325 ; " Institutes,"
328, 343; at Ferrara, 343; arriving
at Geneva, 347, 425; first labors at

Geneva, 349; second call to Geneva,
428,438; banished from, 360 ; C. and
Caroli, 351; catechism, 354; deserted
by du Tillet, 362 ; at Strassburg, 363 ;
success there, 369; liturgy, 371;
Psalms in metre, 374; professor, 376;
at Colloquies, 379, 381; " the theolo
gian," 380; dispute about tran sub
stantiation, 383; in pestilences, 384,
441 ; C. and Melanchthon, 386 ; letters
to Melanchthon, 390, 393, 395, 396,
443; C. and Melanchthou sustaining
a fellow-reformer, 393; C. and Sad-
olet, 398, 402, 412; on popery, 404,
486, 599; defending the Reformation,
405,453; marriage, 413 ; wedded life,
416 ; letters on death of his wife, 418 ;
decease of son, 420; seal with motto,
429 ; shyness, 435 ; diet, sleep, recrea
tions, 444; as preacher, 446; on the
Catholic Church, 450; on miracles,
456; devotion, 393, 402, 430, 437, 443,
445, 493, 495, 500, 505, 507, 513,
514, 612; revising the laws, 464;
church polity, 466, 487, 489 ; on clerical
parity, 469, 600 ; church officers, 470,
476; union of church and state, 471;
church government, 475; consistory,
481 ; discipline, 484, 486, 489, 491 ; C.
and Libertines, 494; persecuted, 496,
503, 507; confronting adversaries,
508; vindicated, 515, 517; commen
taries, 525; as exegete, 526, 531, 532,
535 ; as linguist, 529 ; on the Fathers,
530; on the canon, 536; on inspira
tion, 537; C. and Augustin, 539, 583;
citations from the ancients, 539 ; on
depravity, 543; C. and Luther, 545,
581 ; absolute decree, 547 ; reasoning
on predestination, 549, 561, 576; on
reprobation, 551 ; supralapsarian,553;
on free-will, 554 ; on infant perdition,
556, 558 ; on salvation by grace, 571 ;
on sacraments, 582 ; on baptism, 584,
587; on the eucharist, 589, 591, 592;
as a debater, 594; reply to Pighius,
597; on Council of Trent, 601; on
relics, 606, 609; letter to Luther, 613;
C. and Castellio, 626; relation to
Unitarians, 632; on Roman sacra
ments, 634; C. and L. Socinus, 635;
and the Italian Antitrinitarians, 653,

ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF NAMES AND TOPICS.

885

654, 657 ; on the death penalty for her
etics, 656, 690, 789 ; reviewing West-
phal, 660, 663; on forbearance, 664;
C. and the Augsburg Confession, 664;
C. and Melanchthon, 667 ; on Heshu-
sius, 673; on the Eucharist, 675; on
astrology, 676, 735 ; on the " Celestial
Hierarchy," 678; relation to Serve-
tus, 687, 690; his patience, 728; his
catholicity, 799; his refutation of
Servetus, 789 ; makes Geneva an asy
lum for persecuted Protestants, 802;
his Academy, 803; influence upon
France, 807; upon the Waldenses,
809; upon Germany, 810; upon Hol
land, 812; upon England, 816; upon
Scotland, 818; his last days, 820; his
death and burial, 823; his last will
and testament, 828 ; his farewell ad
dress to the Senate, 831 ; to the min
isters of Geneva, 833; his personal
character and habits, 834.

Calvinism, the system, 538, 544 ; where
prevalent, 264, 542; tested logically,
261, 572; expounded, 568; compared
with Scripture, 575; C. and Armin-
ianism, 815.

Calvinism, American, 544, 586 ; modern,
567.

Calvinists, favoring infant salvation,
560 ; how erroneous, 661.

Campell, U., 141.

Cappel, first war, 165; first peace, 171 ;
second war, 179 ; effect of defeat at,
187 ; second peace, 192.

Caroli, P., 251, 351, 376.

Carolinum, 62.

Carlstadt, 74.

Castellio, S., education, 622; trans
lation of the Bible, 623; against
Calvin, 624; last days, 626; defends
religious liberty, 794.

Catholic Church, 449.

Cauvin, Ge'rard, 298.

Celibacy, clerical, 6, 48, 54, 489.

Champereau, H., 438, 475.

Chapeaurouge, A. d., 359, 427.

Chemnitz, M., 601.

Chiavenna, 155.

Christ's descent into Hades, 624.

Christian liberty, 341.

Chrysostom, St., 487.

Church, people's, 85; at Geneva, 448;
visible and invisible, 450, 457, 460;
officers of, 468, 476; severity at
Geneva, 491 ; authority, 540.

Church, Presbyterian, of Scotland, 469.

Church and State in Switzerland, 65,
114, 143, 245, 263, 357, 473, 489, 516;
Reformers' view, 72, 85; sustaining
one another, 463 ; autonomy, 467, 474 ;
Calvin on, 471, 481, 493.

Churches, sacking of, 59.

Cochleeus, 601.

Coire, 136; seminary at, 143.

Comander, J., 138.

" Commentarius de vera et falsa religi-
one," 63, 176.

Colladon, Germain, 464.

Colloquy, at Marburg, 85, 174; at
Worms, 379; at Regensburg, 148,
381.

Confession, Geneva, 353; Tetrapolitana,
163 ; First Basel, 217 ; First Helvetic,
219 ; Second Helvetic, 221 ; Westmin
ster, on providence and election, 567.

Congregationalism, 140.

Consensus, Zurich, 221; Tigurinus, 210,
592; Genevensis, 619.

Consubstantiation, 672.

Contarini, Cardinal, 381, 643.

Cop, N., 318.

Copernicus, 678.

Coppin, 498.

Cornelius on Anabaptists, 77.

Counter-Reformation, 157, 195.

Courault, 350, 359.

Cranmer, Archbishop, in accord with
Reformers, 208 ; correspondence with
Calvin, 799.

Curio, C. S., 651.

Daniel, F., 307.

Dante on unbaptized infants, 556; on

predestination, 568.
D'Aubigne, see Merle.
" Decretum horribile," 331, 559.
Deacons, 479.
Democracy, 133, 143.
Diestel, 525.
Diet, of Switzerland, 98; Regensburg,

381.
Discipline, at Geneva, 355, 356, 359;

Roman Catholic, 486.

886 ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF NAMES AND TOPICS.

Disputations, Reformation, 53, 56.

Divine justice, 561.

"Dodekachordon," 122.

Dufour, L., 431.

Dyer, on Calvin, 288 ; on divisions, 605.

Ecclesiastical ordinances of Geneva,
440, 475.

Eck, Dr., at Swiss Diet, 99; at Bern,
104; at Regenslmrg, 381; character
ized, 382.

Education, popular, 354.

Edwards, Jonathan, 544.

Eidgeuossen, 233.

Einsiedeln, 29, 196.

Election, 342, 546, 549, 557, 570.

England, Reformation in, 816.

Enthusiasm, 595.

" Epinicion " of Calvin, 380.

Episcopacy, 469.

Erasmus, as author and publisher, 7 ;
influencing Zwingli, 24 ; on the Ref
ormation, 108, 309; Luther's opinion
of, 110; on aesthetics, 112; Farel's
opinion of, 241 ; at Freiburg, 326.

Eschatology, 95.

Eternal Decrees, Westminster Confes
sion, 565.

Excommunication, 487.

Faber, Dr., 53, 99.

Faber Stapulensis, see Le Fevre.

Faith and salvation, 571.

Falais, J. d. B. d., 619.

Farel, W., pioneer, and courage, 237,
242, 245; oratory, 238; education,
239; last labors and days, 247; writ
ings, 249; advising Calvin, 348, 414,
710; at Geneva, 3(50, 431, 518; noble
ness, 441, 446; persecuted, 509; last
visit to Calvin, 822.

Farrar, F. W., quoted, 289.

Fasts, 47.

Favre, F., 497, 505.

Ferdinand, King, 166, 192.

Fisher, G. P., 294.

Francis I., 63, 318.

Frederick III., Elector, 221.

Free churches, 474.

Freedom of the Press, 465, 503.

Free schools, 522.

Free-will, 554.

Freiburg, 234, 237, 244.

French-Swiss, character, 232.

Froment, A., 253.

Furbity, G., 244.

Future life, meditation on, 339.

Galileo, Galilei, 679.

Gallicius, P., 140.

Gavazzi, Father, 639.

Geneston, M. d., 438.

Geneva, in Reformation times, 232, 243,
246, 253, 263, 348, 402, 426, 435, 442,
463, 465, 466, 490, 492, 503, 515, 519,
802.

Gentile, G. V., 656 ; his theology, 657.

Gernler, L., 218.

Gibbon, on Calvin and Servetus, 689.

Glarean, 24, 41, 120, 122.

Glarus, 23, 117, 123.

God's sovereignty, 562.

Godet, F., on redemption, 578.

Grebel, Conrad, 73, 77, 82.

Gribaldo, M., theology, 653.

Grisous, 131, 136, 142.

Gruet, J., 501.

Griitli, 3.

Grynaeus, S., 326.

Guillermins, 427, 475.

Guizot on Calvin, 278, 344.

Hallam on Switzerland, 2.
Halley's comet, 182.
Hamilton, Wm., on Calvin, 290.
Hardenberg, A., 675.
" Harlot stars," 677.
Hase, 330.

Hausser, L., on Calvin, 264, 283.
Heidelberg Catechism, 669, 811.
Henry, Matthew, 525.
"Heptameron," 323.
Heresy, punishment of, 694.
Herrick, G. G., on Calvin, 295.
Heshusius, F., 671.
Heusser, Mrs., quoted, 187.
Hilary, quoted, 604.
Hildebrand, Pope, compared with Cal
vin, 466, 472.

Hodge, C., on baptism, 586.
Hofmeister, Seb., 129.
Hohenlandenberg, H. v., 6.
Holland, Reformation in, 812.
Holy Spirit in eucharist, 592.

ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF NAMES AND TOPICS. 887

Hooker, R., on Calvin, 286, 317.
Hiibmaier, B., 77, 83.
Huguenots, 234.
Hugues, B., 233.
Hyacinthe, Pere, 639.
Hymns, Anabaptist, 80.

Immersion, 78, 587.

Imposition of hands, 315.

Infant salvation, 96, 556, 557, 652.

Infralapsarianism, 552.

Inquisition, Roman, 643, 689.

"Institutes" of Calvin, parts of, 332,

336-342.

Interim, Augsburg, 602 ; Leipzig, 604.
Intolerance, Religious, R. Catholic, 693 ;

Protestant, 700.
Italian Church in Geneva, 628.
Italian Grisons, 146.
Italian Switzerland, 2.

Janssen, on Zwingli, 28.

Jenatsch, G., 160.

Jerome, St., quoted, 599.

Jesuits, 322.

Jewel, Bp., on Bullinger, 209.

Judge, Leo, 22, 48, 55, 64.

Judgments of Reformers on Servetus,

708.

Jussie, Jeanne de, 245.
Justification by faith, 546.

Kaiser, J., 166.

Kampschulte, F. W., on Calvin, 285,
412.

Kessler, J., 127.

Knowledge of God and ourselves, 336.

Knox, John, 818; on Calvin, 518; char
acter of, 819.

Kostlin, quoted on Luther's liberality,
705.

Labyrinth, the, 25.

Lambert of Avignon, 50.

Lambeth Articles, 564.

Lasco, John k, 662.

Latitudinarian, first, among Reformers,

119.

Lausanne, 250.
Lay-elders, 479.
Le Fevre d'^taples, 239; his portrait,

876.

Leo X., 43, 301.

Libertines, 498, 501.

Liturgy, 111, 470.

Locarno, congregation of, 161.

Lord's Supper, the, 7, 111, 163, 209, 217,
247, 373, 659, 661, 673; among the
Reformed, 60; Baptists, 79; Zwingli's
view of, 85, 95, 220; Calvin's view,
376, 480, 590.

Love of God, 580.

Loyola, I., 302.

Lullin, J., 359, 426.

Luther, compared with Zwingli, 8, 33,
37 ; on the eucharist, 86, 589 ; meeting
Kessler, a Swiss, 127; with Verge-
rius, 148; monarchist, 167; abuse of
Zwingli, 177, 187; fourth centennial,
200; on Helvetic Confession, 220;
meeting Zwingli, 86, 259; compared
with Calvin, 272, 385, 394, 412, 416,
444 ; on the ministry, 314 ; on predes
tination, 392; on the Church, 456,
458; lay-priesthood, 470; as commen
tator, 527; views on toleration and
religious liberty, 705.

Lutheranism, 8, 9, 11, 541, 660, 672.

Maigret, A., 512.

Manuel, Niclaus, 103.

Marc-Monnier, on Calvin's work, 521.

Marcourt, 428.

Mare, H. d. 1., 428, 438, 475, 512.

Margaret of Valois, 240.

Marot, C., 374.

Martyr, Justin, on heathen philoso
phers, 178 ; for toleration, 332.

Martyr, Peter, 156, 162, 630.

Mass, 609.

Massacre, Valtellina, 157.

Maurice of Saxony, 605.

Melanchthon, a synergist, 94, 548; on
the eucharist, 111 ; a layman, 313; in
Colloquies, 378; M. and Calvin (also
Luther), 385, 396, 598, 614, 620; on
predestination, 392; as to Leipzig
Interim, 604; on the Lord's Supper,
665, 667, 670; timidity, 669; on the
Messiah, 719.

Merle d'Aubigne', on Calvin, 417, 437,
471.

Methodism, spread, 85, 264; M. and
Calvinism, 56(5, 817.

888 ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF NAMES AND TOPICS.

Military service, 6, 166, 191.

Ministry, call to, 313, 316.

Mirandola, P. d., influencing Zwingli,

24.

" Mirror of a sinful Soul," 317'.
Mohler on Calvin, 835.
Moral inability, 597.
Morikofer, J. C., quoted, 6.
Morlaud, 428.
Motley, quoted, 813, 814.
Miiller, J. v., on Tell, 3; on Calvin, 281.
Murdock, J., on Calvin, 281.
Myconius, O., upholding Zwingli, 38;

history, 216; on eucharist, 217; on

First Basel Confession, 218.

Nation alrath, Swiss, 4, 190.
Natural state of man, 569.
Neuchatel, 232, 233, 242.
Nicknames, 177, 187, 662.
Nicodemites, 610.
Nunnery, St. Claire, 246.

Ochino, B., 162, 637 ; as an orator, 640;
habits, 641; conversion, 642; devo
tion, 643; on Genevan morality, 644;
his teachings, 645, 648, 651 ; Calvin's
esteem for, 646, 649; married expe
riences, 647; at London, 647; last
days, 650.

(Ecolampadius, on predestination, 94;
on the Bible, 100; history, 108, 115;
mildness of, 110, 238; on Servetus,
715.

Olivetan, P. R., 242, 243, 299.

" On the necessity of reforming the
Church," 452.

Opus operatum, as to Lord's Supper,
583.

Orelli, 162.

Original sin, 94.

Ozias, 438.

Pastors, 477.
Patriots of Geneva, 497.
Paul, on redemption, 577.
Paul IV., Pope, 153.
Pedobaptism, 78, 587.
Pedrotus, 375.
Pellican, 64, 241.

Perrin, A., 243, 430, 497, 504, 509, 513,
515.

Perrin, Francesca, 505.

Persecution, Theodosius on, 696 ; Cardi
nal Gibbons on, 699; Roman Catholic
Church on, 699; cases of, 696, 698;
Protestant, 700 ; in general, 688, 689,
691, 693.

Pertemps, 427.

Pestallozzi, 162.

Pestilence at Geneva, 441, 442.

Pflug, J., 378, 381.

Philip of Hesse, 174, 387.

Philippe, Jean, 359, 399.

Pighius, A., 596.

Plague of 1564 in Switzerland, 654.

Pluralism in R. C. Church, 300.

Pocquet, 498, 500.

Polygamy, 649.

" Pope of Geneva," 483.

Popery, 562.

Porral, A., 358, 427.

Poupin, A., 506.

Predestination, according to Zwingli,
91; Bullinger, 210; Calvin, 335, 547,
555, 561.

Predestination, double, 545, 547, 563.

Predestination in the Confessions, 562.
j Presbytery, 316.
j Preterition, 551.
j Priests, immorality of, 6.
j Priesthood, 316.
j Priesthood of believers, 471, 473.

Printing-press, 151, 465.

Protestants persecuted in Paris, 320.

Protestantism, 10, 67, 192, 243, 251.

Puritanism, 264, 819.

Quintin, 498, 500.

Radicalism, 70, 85.

Radziwill, Prince, 637.

Rsemond, F. d., 273.

Ranke, Leopold, 603.

Ratia, 132.

Rationalism, 144, 201, 632.

Redemption of the race, 543.

Reformation, progress of, 12, 54, 58, 98,

104, 112, 114, 124, 130, 137, 156, 241,

246, 320.

Reformed, how inclusive, 9, 11.
Reformed Church, influence of, 12;

spread of, 75, 660.
Reformers, predestinarians, 546.

ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF NAMES AND TOPICS. 889

Reinhart, Anna, 49, 186.

Reislaufeii, 6, 25.

Relics, worship of, 605.

Religious liberty, 10, 131, 139, 165, 171,

191, 193, 211, 693, 794.
Renaissance, 33.
Kenan, E., on Calvin, 279.
Renee, Duchess, 343.
Responsibility, 573.
Reubli, W., 48, 74.
Revision of Westminster Confession,

545.

Rhenanus, Beatus, 30, 42, 113.
Richebourg, L. d., 420.
Richelieu, Cardinal, 160.
Roget, A., 483.
Rohan, H. d., 160.
Romanic races, religion of, 629.
Romanism, 261, 382, 546.
Romansh language, 133, 142.
Rousseau, J. J., on Calvin, 277.
Roussel, 324.
Ruchat, quoted, 246, etc.

Sacraments, Calvin's view, 582, 658,
671.

Sadolet, 398; argues for the papacy,
401 ; denounces the Reformers, 405.

St. Gall, 124.

Salis, H. v., 155.

Salvation, offer of, 576.

Samson, 31, 42.

Saunier, 356, 425.

Sawtre, W., burned, 698.

Schaffhausen, 129.

Schinner, Cardinal, 5, 31.

Schism, 451, 456.

Schmid, K., 55.

Schuler, quoted, 6.

Schweizer, Alex., quoted, 8, 37, 200.

Scotland, Reformation in, 818.

Scripture, proof of credibility, 337.

Servetus, 324, 687 ; Gibbon's remarks
on, 689; on punishment, 690; early
life, 712; on the Bible, 713; an inde
pendent radical, 714 ; his "Errors of
the Trinity," 715, 720; his learning,
716; on the Logos, 717; vilifying
trinitarianism, 719; as geographer,
720; edits Ptolemy's Geography, 721;
delineating nationalities, 722; as
physician and scientist, discovers the

circulation of the blood, 723 ; on as
trology, 724; on baptism, 725, 728;
as exegete, 726 ; correspondence with
Calvin and Poupin, 727; his arro
gance, 730; judgment of Dyer, 731;
calls the Trinity a Cerberus, 731 ; his
"Restitution of Christianity," 732;
his theological system, 736; Christol-
ogy 739; theology, 741; Christo-
pantheism, 745; anthropology and
soteriology, 747 ; doctrine of the sac
raments, 750 ; the Kingdom of Christ
and the reign of anti-Christ, 754; es-
chatology, 755 ; his trial and condem
nation at Vienne, 757; arrival and
arrest at Geneva, 763; first trial at
Geneva, 768; second trial, 772; his
defiant attitude, 779; his condemna
tion, 781; execution, 783; character
of, 786 ; refutation of the errors of,
by Calvin, 789.

Simon, R., on Calvin, 275.

" Simon Magus of Geneva," 688.

Smith, H. B., 293, 544, 586.

Socinianism, 627, 631.

Socinus, Faustus, 637.

Socinus, La3lius, 633.

Sorbonne, 321, 329 ; an Antidote to, 609.

Spalding, Archb., quoted, 520, 828.

Spener, 11.

Spiera, F., 150.

Sprecher, Col., 130.

Stahl, F. J., 485.

Standerath, Swiss, 4, 190.

Strassburg, a second Wittenberg, 363;
nationality, 365; under Calvin, 368,
431 ; French Church at, 369 ; Univer
sity of, 375.

Sturm, J., 375.

Supralapsarianism, 552.

Swiss, "eternal covenant," 2; inde
pendence, 3; federal constitution, 74,
191 ; Diet, 98.

Swiss Reformation, leaders, 7, 11;
genius of, 8, 11 ; date of, 31.

Switzerland, importance of, 1; confed
eration, 2, 39; Protestantism in, 4,
198; Romanism in, 4, 198; constitu
tion, 4, 190.

Switzerland, Christianization, 5; pre
ceding Reformation, 6, 231, 353; first
Reformed Communion in, 60; Can-

890 ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF NAMES AND TOPICS.

tonal distribution, 235; after Refor
mation, 463.

Synergism, 548.

Synod, 68.

Tauler, 35.

Teachers, 478.

Tell, William, 2.

" Ten Theses," 104.

Theocracy, 471.

Thirty-nine Articles, 565.

Ticino, 146.

Tillet, L. du, 323, 348, 362, 366.

Toggenburg, 128.

Toleration, religious, 618, 694, 701;
opinions on, by Luther, 702; Me-
lanchthon, 707; Bucer, 708; Bullinger,
709; Peter Martyr, 710; Beza, 710,
797; Cranmer, 711; Calvin, 789;
Castellio, 794.

Trajan's recovery from hell, 610.

Trappereau, L., 438.

Travers, John, 137.

Trechsel, comparison of Calvin and
Socinus, 636 ; on Servetus, 736.

Tremellio, E., 630.

Trent, Council of, 598, 600.

Tschudi, JEgid., 2, 26, 117.

Tschudi, V., 119.

Tulloch, Principal, on Calvin, 291, 449.

United States Constitution compared

with the Swiss, 190.
Universalism, conditional, 578.
Utenheim, C. v., 109.

Valangin, 233.

Valdes, J., 642.

Valtellina, 146, 160 ; massacre of, 157.

Vandel, P., 497, 501, 510, 512.

Vaud, Canton de, 232, 233.

Vergerius, P. P., history, 147, 155;

theology, 162 ; on Geneva, 516.
Vermigli, see Martyr, Peter.
Viret, Peter, history, 250; as author,

252 ; at Geneva, 432 ; oratory, 446.
Volmar, M., teacher of Calvin, 305; of

Beza, 846.

Waldenses, 115, 242, 243, 809.
Watt, J. von, 125.

Wesley, Charles, on Calvinism, 567.
Wesley, John, on Calvinism, 566; his

labors, 815.
Wesleyanism, 9.
Westphal, 660, 662.
Wildhaus, 21.

Will of God, secret and revealed, 581.
Witchcraft, 493.
Wolflin, H., 22.
Wolmar, see Volmar.
Worship, comments on, 61; order of,

at Strassburg, 372.
Wyttenbach, T., 7, 22.

Zanchi, 154, 629, 630.

Zurich (Zurich), described, 38, 40; pes
tilence in, 43 ; hospitality of, 50, 162 ;
reformation of, 54, 58, 127 ; publishes
first German Bible, 63; persecuting,
83 ; in Cappel wars, 168, 170, 179, 183,
193; Zwingli statue, 200.

Zwingli, his work, 7; parentage, 20;
education, 21, 23, 29; manliness, 22,
43, 172 ; pastorates, 23, 29, 40 ; piety,
26, 30, 44, 66, 189 ; as patriot, 25, 167,
183, 189; chastity, 27; annotations
on Gr. Test., 30; popularity, 32, 38,
199; receives a papal pension, 32;
compared with Luther, 33, 36 ; oppos
ing Indulgences, 43 ; poems, 44, 173 ;
depreciates fasts, 47; protests against
celibacy, 48; his marriage, 49; his
Bible, 50; fighting popery, 54, 59,
127; his ritual, 60; reforming aims,
62, 66, 169; as statesman, 62, 169,
171, 180; first organizes Synods, 68;
against the Radicals and Anabaptists,
71; on the eucharist, 85, 590, 593;
works of, 87 ; theology of, 89 ; on the
canon, 90 ; on eschatology, salvation
of infants and pious heathen, 95, 177;
contrasted with Eck, 99; at the Bern
Council, 104 ; influencing Glarus, 117;
the Palatinate, 164; on mercenary
enlistments, 166; a republican, 167;
at Marburg, 174; his death, 184, 186;
fourth centennial, 200; estimates of,
37, 82, 259; on invisible Church, 459;
on predestination, 547.

Zwingli, Anna, 49, 186.

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